Issuesinappliedl 2 No 1 Univ

Issues in Applied Linguistics
Volume 2
Number
MAIN ARTICLES
Arabization in Tunisia:
Mohamed Daoud
The Tug of War
Performance of ESL Students on a State Minimal
Competency Test
James Dean Brown
Frames and Coherence

Fool For Love
in
Sam
Shepard's
Vaidehi Ramanathan
SPECIAL FEATURE
Language Education, Language Acquisition:

Working Perspectives of Four Applied Linguists
Leo van
Lier,
John Povey, Brian K. Lynch, John Schumann
Reviews by
Rachel Locker, Roger
Charlene Polio
Griffiths,
Maria Egbert, David Leech,
June 1991
ial
Volume 2 Number
June 1991
ial
Number
Volume 2
June 1991
Managing Editor
Editor
Antony John Kunnan
Patrick Gonzales
Assistant Editor
Sally Jacoby
Patricia
Review Editor
Duff
Additional Readers
Lyle Bachman, Donna Brinton, Marianne Celce-Murcia, Bernard Comrie,
Mohamed Daoud, Heather Goad, Agnes Weiyun He, Christine Holten, Kyu-hyun
Kim, Rachel Lagunoff, David Leech, Liz Hamp-Lyons, John Povey, Perias
Sithambaram Pillay, Richard Robison, William Rutherford, Suchitra
Sadanandan, John Schumann, Yasuhiro Shirai, Swathi Vanniarajan
Editorial
Staff
Assistant to the Review Editor
Data-Base Management
Jack Walker
Fang-Lian Liao
Production
Assistant
Maureen Mason
is published twice a year by the graduate students

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Copyright 1991, Regents of the University of California

ISSN 1050-4273
Abstracted
in Linguistics
and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
ial
CONTENTS
Editorial: Political Challenges
and
Applied Linguistics
Antony John Kunnan
MAIN ARTICLES
Mohamed Daoud
The Tug of War

7
Performance of ESL Students on a State

Minimal Competency Test
James Dean Brown

Fool For Love
in
Sam Shepard's
Vaidehi Ramanathan
49
SPECIAL FEATURE
Leo van
Lier,
John Povey, Brian K. Lynch, John Schumann
77
REVIEWS
New Zealand Ways of Speaking English
Allan Bell and Janet Holmes (Eds.)
97
Reviewed by Rachel Locker

Individual Differences in Second-Language
Learning
Peter Skehan
Reviewed by Roger
Griffiths
02
The Video Connection: Integrating Video

into Language Teaching
Rick Altaian
Reviewed by Maria Egbert
108
Teaching and Learning Vocabulary

I.S.P.
Nation
Reviewed by David H. Leech

Interaction:
112
Language and Science
Terry L. Powell
Reviewed by Charlene Polio
116
Announcements
126
Publications Received
130
Subscription Information
133
Information for Contributors
135
Editorial
Political Challenges
Whenever and wherever
and Applied Linguistics
the pressures of "modernization"--
growing importance of sciencehave become unusually intense, episodes of revivalism and

culture-issue politics have swept over the social landscape.
secularity, urbanization, the
Walter Dean Burnham

Post-Conservative America
a conservative voice in educational and

began during the Reagan era and escalated
The resurgence of
cultural debates that
Bush presidency has fueled a fiery public colloquy

educators and intellectuals. These debates have been
particularly crucial and urgent for newly emerging interdisciplinary
endeavors within anthropological, cultural, feminist, historical,
legal, linguistic, and literary domains as well as for critical thinkers
concerned with issues of curricula, pedagogy, multiculturalism, and
recently in the
among
internationalism.
One such
debate, on "The Changing Culture of the
University," was held by the Partisan Review at Boston University

recently. Invited to the conference, according to Kurzweil (1991),
were "'liberals,' 'leftists,' 'neoconservatives,' 'conservatives,' and
'critical thinkers'" (p. 185). Despite this spectrum of perspectives,
the conference especially provided conservatives like Nathan Glazer
(editor of The Public Interest), Hilton Kramer (editor of The New
Criterion) and Cleanth Brooks (the venerable New Critic) the
opportunity to reinforce their deeply-embedded view of the "crisis in

education," champion the so-called virtues of "Western Civilization
Regents of the University of California
ISSN 1050-4273
Vol. 2 No.
1991
1-6
Editorial
courses," and aggressively argue that
more inclusive
curricula,
multiculturalism, and critical pedagogy are merely attempts at liberal

social therapy within a relativistic discourse of pluralism and
"politically correct" ideology.
Surprisingly, such debates have remained on the margins of
applied linguistics, by and large, and, therefore, have not engaged

our field's central attention, though their ramifications could
dramatically influence several areas of inquiry and practice such as
language pedagogy and language planning and policy. The few
published discussions that have appeared recently, however, include
Cummins's (1989) focus on "empowerment of minority students,"
Peirce's (1989) "pedagogy of possibility," Pennycook's (1989,
1990) "politics of language teaching" and "critical applied
Skutnabb-Kangas's (1986) "the gospel of
linguistics," Phillipson
international English," and Tollefson's (1991) "planning language
conference,
policy and inequality." In addition, at the 1991
some of these and other related concerns were touched upon in
plenary talks given by Kramsch (1991) and Cazden (1991) as well
as by presenters in lesser attended sessions on Language and
Society, Language and Gender, Community Interpreting, and
Setting and Context in Applied Linguistics Research.
These diverse but resonating views, among others, are
generally in opposition to the conservative stance which rang out at
the Partisan Review conference and which is heard from other
conservatives like Bloom (1987) and, more recently, D'Souza
(1991). Collectively, however, all these authors should remind us
that traditional educational theory and practice within applied
linguistics needs to be analyzed critically for its political and possible
hegemonic interests. More specifically, the implications of these
views make it clear that it is crucial for applied linguists to take a
principled stand with regard to concerns such as the education and
empowerment of disadvantaged and minority groups, the English
Only Movement, bilingualism, banned languages and their
maintenance, and refugee and teacher education.
Giroux (1989) presents persuasive thoughts on why
educators should develop a pedagogy that would challenge existing
political, social, and cultural structures. He exhorts educators to use
a deconstructive practice that
&
AAAL
uncovers rather than suppresses the complex histories,

interests, and experiences that make up the diverse voices.
In this view, there is an attempt to uncover and reconstitute
the suppressed histories and voices of subordinate groups in
.
order to restore and affirm the legacy and unrealized potential of

the forms of subjectivity, agency, and experience characteristic
of such groups, (p. 147)
Such an approach,
to be sure, can be unsettling, for
it
forces us to
come face to face with the tacit assumptions underlying everything

we do in the name of applied linguistics. But it can therefore open
the way for reassessment and redirection of applied linguistics
research, theory, and practice.
In this
first
issue of the second
Linguistics, the lead article, by
volume of Issues
Mohamed Daoud,
is
in Applied
an example of
how language planning policy can be analyzed by the

deconstructivist practice, in that Daoud uncovers the complex
histories of political and social power which underlie official
language policy in Tunisia. Daoud shows how influential elites
have promoted a dual policy of bilingualism (Arabic and French)
and biculturalism (Arab-Islamic and French- Western European)
despite the official rhetoric of "Arabization" as the key to national
cohesion and independence. His analysis raises issues for language
policy not only in post-colonial countries but also in "first world"
societies where the official rhetoric claims to respect multicultural
diversity.
The second main
article in this issue,
by James Dean Brown,
a report of research carried out to assess the performance of

students of limited English proficiency (SLEP) on the Hawaii State
Minimal Competency Test, given to native- speakers and nonnativespeakers of English alike. While Brown found differences in the
performances between the SLEP group and the norm group, he
found no significant differences in terms of ethnicity among the
subjects in the study. Brown's research raises many questions
is
about competency testing that have
political, social,
and cultural
implications which applied linguists ought to address in the future.

Vaidehi Ramanathan's investigation of coherence in a play
by American playwright Sam Shepard is the third main article in this
issue. By applying a "frame analysis" approach to excerpts from the
one-act play Fool for Love, Ramanathan shows how social roles
and activities can be seen to contribute to the linguistic and textual

coherence of long and seemingly discontinuous stretches of text.
4 Editorial
While her research
raises issues for the creation and perception of

cohesion in literary texts, it also has implications for the study of
coherence in non-fiction writing as well as in forms of scripted and
unscripted dialogue.
As the Special Feature this time, we present the perspectives
of four applied linguists active in two of the core disciplines of
applied linguistics: language education and language acquisition.
Leo van Lier, John Povey, and Brian Lynch, representing particular
expertises within language education, contribute essays, while John
Schumann responds to questions from David Leech (who

coordinated the Special Feature) about his past and present interests
in language acquisition research. Individually, each contributor
explains how his area of specialization confronts questions which
are fundamental for all researchers, theorists, and practitioners
interested in language learning. Collectively, the four contributions
suggest that work in language education and work in language

number of important
acquisition continue to inform one another in a
ways.
In the Reviews section, five books are evaluated which deal
with New Zealand English (Rachel Locker), individual differences
in second language acquisition (Roger Griffiths), the use of video in
language teaching (Maria Egbert), teaching and learning vocabulary
(David Leech), and reading skills for EST (Charlene Polio).
like the
we
shapes of snowflakes
are the
words on a journey
not the inscriptions of a settled people
W.S. Merwin
at morning"
"An encampment
As of June 1, 1991, Sally Jacoby, Assistant Editor, will take

over as Editor of ML. The December 1991 issue of
will thus
be the first issue prepared under her editorship. Sally will continue
IAL's policy of looking favorably on interesting small-scale as well
as large-scale studies; on new departures as well as underrepresented areas of applied linguistics research; and on submissions
from countries other than the U.S. as well as from nonnative-
ML
speakers of English. In addition, IAL will continue to encourage

submissions from student researchers as well as from faculty and
independent investigators.
All future correspondence and
manuscript submissions should henceforth be addressed to Sally
Jacoby.
In its first three issues, I trust IAL has not only been able to
provide you with a range of articles, features, and reviews that
represent "traditional" applied linguistics, but that we have also been
able to push the boundaries of applied linguistics a bit further out in
the hope that less "traditional" inquiries can offer new perspectives
and challenge existing structures. We haven't been able to fully
explore these avenues as yet, but we ask you to consider ML, in the
words of W.S. Merwin, to be "not the inscriptions of a settled
people, but words on a journey," a journey IAL has only just
begun.
Antony John Kunnan
June 1991
REFERENCES
The closing of the American mind: How higher education has
and impoverished the souls of today's students. New
York: Simon & Schuster.
Burnham, W. D. (1983). Post-Conservative America. Socialist Review 13, 125.
Bloom, A.
(1987).
failed democracy
Cazden, C.
(1991).
Metalinguistic awareness revisited.
Annual Conference of
New
Cummins,
J.
the
Plenary presented
at the
American Association of Applied Linguistics,
York.
(1989).
Empowering minority
students.
Sacramento, CA: California
Association for Bilingual Education.
D'Souza, D. (1991). Illiberal education: The politics of race and sex on campus.
York: Free Press.
New
(1989). Schooling as a form of cultural politics: Towards a pedagogy

of and for difference. In H. A. Giroux & P. McLaren (Eds.), Critical
pedagogy, the state, and cultural struggle (pp. 125-151). Albany, NY: State
Giroux, H. A.
University of
Kramsch, C.
New York
Press.
Defining the learner's challenge: Language in context or

language as context. Plenary presented at the Annual Conference of the
American Association of Applied Linguistics, New York.
Kurzweil, E. (1991). Introduction. Partisan Review [Special Issue], 2, 185-191.
Merwin, W.S. (1977). An encampment at morning. In The compass flower (p. 11).
New York: Atheneum.
Peirce, B. N. (1989). Toward a pedagogy of possibility in the teaching of English
internationally. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 401-420.
Pennycook, A.
(1991).
(1989).
politics of
The concept of method,
language teaching.
TESOL
interested knowledge, and the
Quarterly, 23, 589-618.
Editorial
Pennycook, A. (1990). Towards a critical applied linguistics for the 1990s. Issues
in Applied Linguistics, 1, 8-28.
Phillipson, R. & Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1986). Applied linguists as agents of wider
colonization--The gospel of international English.
Skutnabb-Kangas
In R. Phillipson
(Eds.), Linguicism rules in education (pp.
&
T.
103-123).
Roskilde University Centre.

J. W.
(1991). Planning language, planning inequality: Language policy
in the community. London: Longman.
Tollefson,
Antony John Kunnan,

linguistics at
UCLA.
Editor of IAL,
is
a doctoral candidate in applied
Originally from Bangalore, India, he holds an
M.A.
in
English Literature from Bangalore University and an M.Litt. in Applied

Linguistics from the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages,
Hyderabad. He has worked as a teacher, teacher educator, and journalist, and his
research interests include cultural studies and language assessment.
The Tug
of
War
Mohamed Daoud
University of California, Los Angeles
This study presents the policy of Arabization in Tunisia as an example

of language planning which has been used to pursue and maintain power. It
argues that Arabization has been promoted only to the extent that it served the
interests of the politico-economic ruling elite. After reviewing the relevant
literature, the study evaluates the language situation in Tunisia in terms of the
degree of implementation of Arabization in three domains: 1) education; 2)
government administration; 3) the media and general use. The study shows that
the official authorities have been quite inconsistent in promoting Arabization,
and that they have encouraged bilingualism (Arabic and French) and
biculturalism (Arab-Islamic and Western European, mainly French) much more
consistently.
and objectives of the

as they interact with other
In this light, the study analyzes the attitudes
who
represent the influential

competing elites in order to maintain power.
authorities,
elites,
INTRODUCTION
Arabization
Arabic
(MSA)
is
the process of promoting
Modern Standard
to the level of a fully functional
language in
educational, administrative, and mass-media domains, to replace the

language of the former European colonial powers. Historically,
Arabization was viewed throughout the Arab World as a

fundamental component of the struggle for independence. The
maintenance of Arabic was proclaimed by the leaders of the various
Arab independence movements as the means to assert their
countries' national character vis a vis the colonial powers, to retrieve
their people's Arab-Islamic cultural identity, and to preserve their
national unity as a community speaking one language: Arabic,
rather than French, English, Berber, or any regional dialect. Since
Arab countries achieved their independence, Arabization

has been considered an essential means to remove the vestiges of
colonialism which still permeate the governmental and educational
systems as well as the cultural and social environment.
the various
ISSN 1050-4273
Vol. 2 No.
1991 7-29
8 Daoud
not merely an issue that concerns only

it is rather a language policy issue
closely tied to the political, social, and cultural situation prevailing in
each Arab country and to the ruling elites' objectives in establishing
and maintaining power. This paper presents Arabization in Tunisia
as a case study within the theoretical framework of language
planning as the pursuit and maintenance of power (Cooper, 1990).
During the struggle for independence from the late 19th
century till 1956, Tunisian leaders proclaimed Arabization as the
means to assert the national character of Tunisia vis a vis colonialist
France, to retrieve the country's Arab-Islamic cultural identity, and
to preserve its national unity as a community speaking one language:
However, some thirty years after Tunisia became
Arabic.
independent in 1956, these same leaders, who still hold the reins of
Thus, Arabization
linguists
is
and educationalists;
now claim that the Arabization campaign has been

successfully completed in line with national goals. The following
statement, from the news magazine Dialogue, the mouthpiece of the
power,
ruling Destour party, represents this view:
While the first two decades of independence were devoted to the

spread of education [1960s] then to Arabization and
Tunisification [1970s], the present decade is that of making
choices for the future. The key issue is how to form the
generation of the year 2000. (Hechmi, 1984, p. 16; author's
translation from the original French)
What
is interesting in such a statement is not only the claim that

Arabization has been successfully achieved, but the implication that
it is no longer a matter of public debate. The following study will
show that this form of censorship imposed on the issue of
Arabization has often been resorted to for different but essentially
non-language-related reasons. Moreover, in surveying the present
language situation in Tunisia, this paper will argue that Arabization
was promoted only to the extent that it served the interests of the
politico-economic ruling elite. It will maintain that the official
authorities
have been quite inconsistent
in
implementing Arabization,
and that it is bilingualism and biculturalism 2 which they have

promoted much more consistently. The paper will also analyze the
attitudes and objectives of the ruling elite as it interacts with other
competing elites in order to maintain power.
Arabization in Tunisia
BACKGROUND
To
appreciate the complexity of the Arabization question and

it, some general background
identify the various actors involved in
information is in order before proceeding to an evaluation of the

current language situation in Tunisia.
The
Varieties of Arabic
Classical Arabic (CA), the language of the Qur'an, was

established as the national language of Tunisia and the whole of
North Africa when Islam spread to that part of the world more than
twelve centuries ago. The indigenous language, Berber, which had
already been affected by Phoenician and then Latin over the
centuries, was eventually almost entirely supplanted by an oral
dialect of Arabic spoken by all Tunisians. Unlike Morocco and
Algeria, Tunisia today has no more than 1% Berber speakers
(Garmadi, 1968). Arabic, therefore, survived in Tunisia in two
distinct varieties: the first, CA, was preserved by literary writers
and mainly by theologians and teachers in the Quranic schools, and
the second, an oral dialect known as Tunisian Arabic (TA), was and
still remains the language of everyday conversation.
During their colonial rule over Tunisia (1881-1956), the
French established a number of schools to promote their language as
the object and the means of instruction. They also established an
administrative system which functioned almost totally in French,
with the occasional use of TA in certain legal cases and other
was used only within the
dealings with the local people. Thus,
confines of al-Zaytuna, a traditional theological university where
reading, writing, and Arabic grammar were taught, and in alSadiqiyya, a bilingual high school (founded in 1875 by the reformer
Khayr al-Diyn Pacha al-Tunusi) where a few Tunisians went for
CA
among whom were the leaders of the ruling elite in

independent Tunisia (Garmadi, 1968; Maamouri, 1973; Murphy,
1977). The majority of the ruling elite, however, received their
higher education in France, several among them even marrying
French women before returning to Tunisia.
In the first years of independence, the bilingually educated
leaders of the country undertook the task of founding a nation, one
essential characteristic of which had to be the Arabic language.
Indeed, Arabic was the most significant element around which they
their education,
could unite the people:
10 Daoud
If language is a potential point of national pride, then it may
be a focus to rally a nation and is an ideal choice for uniting a
people because few other things are so present in their daily
lives and affect them all so equally, unless they are bilingual
and divided over language status. (Murphy, 1977, p. 8)
In this spirit, the Tunisian constitution stipulated that

"Tunisia is a republic; its language is Arabic and its religion Islam"
[emphasis mine; author's translation from the original Arabic]. But
which variety of Arabic is meant to be preserved or promoted?
Because of the sacred view people have of Arabic as the language of
their
the Qur'an, Tunisians, like all other Arabs, consider
mother tongue and TA, the oral dialect, a "degraded form" rather
than a characteristically different variety of Arabic. This view is
confirmed in a recent appraisal of the issue (Al-Baccouche, 1990).
to
The political leaders who shared this view encouraged
spread "out of the mosques and schools into the street" (Maamouri,
1973, p. 57), which increased its use and enhanced its social
function. This led to the development of MSA, an intermediate
variety of Arabic which evolved out of the close contact between
and TA, and which is described as "the language of the mass media
and of some political speeches, modern plays, novels, and literary
CA
CA
CA
magazines and lectures" (Maamouri, 1973,

also notes that, in
its
written form,
p. 57).
Garmadi (1968)
MSA is a kind of modem literary
Arabic, highly influenced by French in its style and structure, while

in its oral form, it is an intermediate register between CA and TA.
as practiced in
Garmadi's definition is clearly specific to
Tunisia, as opposed to
as a cover term for "educated" Arabic
throughout the Arab World, but the definition is valid given that
there are regional varieties of
which have arisen out of the
interaction between CA, French or English, and the local spoken
dialect (cf., Maamouri, 1973; Al-Shalabi, 1984; Benikhalef, 1987).
MSA
MSA
MSA
Arabization:
A Complex
Issue
Grandguillaume (1983) points out that Arabization is still a

matter of current debate. Drawing on a number of references and a
series of official statements relevant to three Maghreb (North
African) countries (Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco), he argues that
the question of Arabization
is
indeed deeply set in the field of
internal oppositions, class conflicts, ideological tensions,
group competition;
it
is at
the center of the struggle for
and
power
at its different levels,
from the
speaks of "bread language"

elites that will
maintain power,
(p. 35;
job one
of regenerating
ability to find a
to the strategies
11
author's translation
from the original French)
Grandguillaume shows that the problem of Arabization has

three dimensions: 1) linguistic, 2) sociological or socio-political,
and 3) anthropological. While briefly reviewing his argument, I will
highlight the significant attitudes of the various participants in the
discussion of this problem, for it is these attitudes which help us
uncover the participants' underlying objectives for pursuing and
maintaining power.
At the linguistic level, the problem of Arabization has to do
with the conflictual status of CA and TA, on the one hand, and CA
and French, on the other. As noted by both Maamouri (1973) and
Garmadi (1968), Arabization entailed a reduction of the gap between
CA and TA. This conflict was acknowledged by R. Hamzaoui, an
Arabic linguist and author, who wrote in 1966 that "because of its
vitality, the dialect [TA] constitutes a permanent threat to the
foundations of the Arabic language [CA]" (cited in Grandguillaume,
1983, p. 172; author's translation from the original French).
Arabization also required the massive introduction of a new
vocabulary so that Arabic could replace French as a means of
expression in the modern world.
However, creating a modern
Arabic lexicon proved to be a difficult and slow process. For
instance, specialists from the Maghreb countries (Tunisia, Algeria,
and Morocco) managed to create only a basic lexicon for the first
three years in elementary school, which was published in 1976 as a
manual entitled L'Arabe Fonctionnel
al-rasid al-lughawi in
Arabic under the auspices of the Maghrebi Consultative Committee
for Education and Instruction. However, the influence of French
can still be seen in this new lexicon. While many words could be
derived from Arabic roots (e.g., Haasuub or Haasib for
'computer,' derived from the trilateral root H-s-b> meaning 'to
count'), many others were direct transliterations of Greco-Latin
words (e.g.Jiyulujiya for 'geology').
The lexicographical process has been very slow mainly
because of a lack of coordination between the different Arab
countries on a unified modern lexicon. Such agencies as The
Maghrebi Consultative Committee (created in 1966) or The
Permanent Bureau of Arabization (created in 1961 to coordinate
Arabization in the Arab World, but activated only in 1973) began
operation only after the different countries had already started
12
Daoud
developing their
own
lexicons (Grandguillaume, 1983; Al-Shalabi,
1984).
However, besides the practical problems of creating a

modern lexicon and incorporating it in teaching materials, along with
political pressure from the different Arab governments, Arabists
(i.e., proponents of Arabic, who include Arab nationalists, Muslim
activists, Arabic linguists, and teachers) all share in the
For, like R.
responsibility of slowing down the process.
Hamzaoui, their seeing TA, and French for that matter, as "a
permanent threat" to CA, belies a concern for the purity of CA.
Such concern may be seen as a form of resistance to change, which
is ironic since modernizing CA would increase its use and ultimately
benefit the Arabists. But this resistance is more likely an effort on
the part of this group to retain their social prestige and privileges as a
professional intellectual elite that aspires to participation in the
decision-making process, at least at the level of language policy,
which explains, in part, why many Arabists are active in the
different Arabization agencies.
At the sociological level, the issue of Arabization can be
viewed from two perspectives. One perspective is that the degree of
freedom in discussing the issue can be considered a measure of the
democratization of public life. More often than not, the Arabization
debate was censored, whether to prevent harsh criticism of the
ruling elite or to forestall major conflicts between the "traditionalists"
and "modernists."
S. Hamzaoui (1976) describes the ideology of the
traditionalists as oscillating between Arab nationalism and Muslim
fundamentalism. As he explains it, because of the purist conception
they have of Arabic, because of their glorification of the past and
their indignation about the degradation of moral values, for which
they blame the ruling elite, and because of their Pan-Arabist ideas,
the traditionalists constitute a rival or counter elite to the rulers. The
modernists, on the other hand, are essentially bilingual and partake,
to varying degrees, in the official ideology of the ruling elite. They
have Western values and do not really identify with the Pan-Arabist
ideology.
The second perspective is that Arabization was used as a
means of social selection for the maintenance of elites, because, as it
turned out, a higher level of proficiency in Arabic did not really
increase an individual's opportunities for academic achievement or
professional promotion. This was, in fact, what the first high
school graduates from Section A 3 discovered after they had passed
the Arabic baccalaureate (secondary school examinations). Having
13
been taught all school subjects in Arabic, these students could

go to a university, except to the Arabic and Religious Studies
departments, nor find jobs that matched their qualifications. This
must have been all the more frustrating to them since many of the
bilingual baccalaureate certificate holders were being recruited as
school teachers and administration clerks at a time when the country
needed Tunisians to replace the French personnel. Thus, while
implementing Arabization, the influential elites made sure their
children were proficient in French to guarantee them access to the
neither
best schools in France (hautes ecoles) or in Tunisia (schools of the

French Mission followed by science and technology departments at
the Tunisian university).
At the anthropological level, Arabization has raised other

issues related to language as a factor of national unity vis a vis the
French culture and value system which is, in fact, preserved in
Tunisia thanks to the spread of French in administrative bodies,
commerce, the media, and in general use. As will be seen below,
both the decision of the ruling elite to keep the French language as a
means of instruction in the scientific and technical fields and the
preservation of the French administrative system strengthened the
Western value system which the authorities set out to rid the country
of. The lingering question was asked by Grandguillaume: "Which
societal model are we aiming for [not only] from the linguistic, but
also the cultural and ideological point of view?" (Grandguillaume,
1983, p. 44; author's translation from the original French).
The System
of Values in Education
In a study of elementary school Arabic textbooks, Bchir

(1980a, 1980b) analyzed the readings in these books in terms of
thematic content and cultural orientation. She focused on the
perceptions that the passages convey of such topics as the seasons,
the family, work, great men, modernity, and culture as well as of
the notions of social involvement and social conservatism. She
noted, for example, that the family presented in the readings was
typically the model bourgeois Western-oriented family sitting around
the fireplace, celebrating birthdays, etc. But such a depiction of a
family, Bchir points out, stands in stark contrast to the typical
Tunisian family that does not have a fireplace nor celebrates
birthdays.
Bchir' s study reveals that the textbooks are characterized by

first is the depreciation of national
identity, because the authors overlook the cultural reality of the
two fundamental tendencies. The
14 Daoud
country, depreciate all that is traditional, and perceive the Tunisian

heritage and social reality as static. The second tendency has to do
with a dazzled admiration of the West and uncritical acceptance of
modernity: the elementary school textbooks present Western
modernity in terms of positiveness, progress, and the miraculous
solution of problems, while they equate traditionalism with
negativity, failure, ignorance, and carelessness.
For instance, in the course of six years of elementary school
students learn about twenty great men, but they are all from the
West. Famous medieval Arab scientists, like Ibn Battuta, an
explorer and geographer, and Ibn Khaldoun, a social scientist, are
never mentioned. Students learn about the genius behind scientific
inventions but never read about the problems of modern science
(e.g., the destructive power of Nobel's dynamite) or the
disadvantages of modern technology (e.g., pollution, accidents).
The only Third World celebrity mentioned in the readings is Pele, a
Brazilian soccer player.
Such attitudes as the uncritical admiration of what is Western
and the disparagement of what is local or Arab are, therefore,
developed from a very young age and later reinforced by the media,
films, etc. What is more, they are coupled with a lack of confidence
in the ability of the Arabic language to meet the communicative
needs of the young student who finds Arabic used only in Arabic
grammar and literature classes, while French is used in mathematics
and science classes.
EVALUATION OF THE CURRENT LANGUAGE

SITUATION
Language
in
Education
which Arabization has

been sometimes promoted, sometimes retarded, we will review the
series of official language policy decisions that have been made
since Tunisia became independent in 1956 regarding the use of both
Arabic and French in education.
Appendix A presents the
chronology of these decisions.
The chronological survey reveals that the decision makers
have been rather inconsistent in promoting Arabization in Tunisian
In order to appreciate the extent to
schools.
While
it
is
true that there
was
a consistent effort to
implement the Arabization process during the 1970s and up
to
1982,
15
the process seems to have been

in
French was reintroduced in the
Indeed,
1986.
1989,
reversed by
five French-medium pilot
school
and
of
elementary
second year
schools were created in the major Tunisian cities in 1989.
Originally, on June 25, 1958, former President Bourguiba
declared in a speech at al-Sadiqiyya High School:
the effort
was discontinued and
Education in the secondary schools will be oriented toward

Arabization and the use of Arabic so that it can serve to teach
all the subjects unless necessity and circumstances force us, for
a limited period, to use French to take advantage of the
possibilities that are available to us until the teacher- training
schools provide us with the necessary staff
teaching of
all
subjects in Arabic.
who
(J' Action,
will ensure the
June 26, 1958;
author's translation from the French)
However, many more statements were made later by the President

and other officials, which indicated that the country simply could not
afford not to maintain French as the language for teaching the
sciences and for gaining access to the "modern world" (see
Bourguiba's statement on June 30, 1986 in Appendix A, and thenPrime Minister Mzali's references to the importance of French, in
the final section on Francophonie below). This ambivalent attitude
toward the French language and the value system it represents is
much clearer in the domains of the administration, the media, and
the general environment, which we will now consider.
Arabic and French
in
Government Administration
The Tunisian government has 19 ministries (as of October,

1989; see Appendix B), but only three have been totally Arabized
(i.e., all their documents, reports, and publications are in Arabic):
the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of the Interior, and the
Ministry of Justice. That the latter two ministries deal with the
problems of the common people encouraged their Arabization.
However, another factor was that the Ministry of Justice started with
a sizable number of legal texts from Islamic Law, concerning
personal status (marriage, divorce, adoption) and land ownership
(inheritance, Hubus), all of which had been left from the colonial
period and were in Arabic. In addition, the country had several
qualified practitioners and students of Islamic law who were more
competent in Arabic (R. Hamzaoui, 1970) than in French.
Officially, the Office of the Prime Minister is said to be totally
16
Daoud
Arabized, presumably to set an example, but in fact it still circulates

some documents in both Arabic and French.
Of the remaining ministries, the Ministry of Education
functions primarily in Arabic but still uses French, especially with
respect to mathematics, science, and technology. The Ministry of
Defense is also largely Arabized, at least as far as can be determined
from the documents addressed to the general public concerning
compulsory military service. It is likely, however, that the literature
related to military management, training, and research is in French.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is considered to be only half-
Arabized, despite the 1989 presidential decree mandating its

Arabization, because it has to deal with non-Arabic speaking
governments. Four other ministries occasionally issue publications
or decrees in Arabic, but the bulk of their literature, correspondence,
the ministries of Information, Culture, Social
etc. is in French:
Affairs, and Youth & Sports. The remaining ministries operate
almost exclusively in French, yet it should be noted that these
French-medium ministries fall within the domains of science,
technology, and business, which were domains originally targeted,
in principle, for Arabization.
The
view would probably disagree with this

extent of Arabization in the government ministries
official
assessment of the
their affiliate agencies, since every ministry has Arabic

4
However,
translators on hand who could translate any document.
and
based on observation of the day-to-day

communication between the various ministries and the general public
as reflected in their publications, correspondence, and formal
paperwork as well as on personal, informal contact that I had with
personnel at different levels of the Tunisian administrative
the assessment
is
bureaucracy.
Indeed, I would argue that the following observation
by R. Hamzaoui (1970) is still valid today:
Although the constitution stipulates
[of Tunisia]
is
Arabic, there
is
that the official
language
not one official text which
immediately .... The

of a decree dated
1
relative to the publication of all the
September 8, 1955
decrees, decisions, legal and regulatory texts as well as notices
and information published in Le Journal Officiel de la
Rfpublique Tunisienne [the Official Journal of the Tunisian
Republic] which must be written in the two languages [i.e.,
Arabic and French], (p. 217; author's translation from the
obliges each administrator to apply

first
it
text available to us is Article

.
original French)
made
Language
in the
Appendix
Media and the General Environment
shows
that the
newspapers and magazines available
number of French-medium
Tunisian public is greater

than that of publications in Arabic. If special-interest magazines
(e.g., fashion, hobbies, etc.) were included, they would even more
strongly tip the balance in favor of French. The ruling party has two
daily newspapers {al-Hurriyya and Le Renouveau, formerly named
al-'amel and I'Action, respectively) and a weekly magazine
{Dialogue, renamed 7 Novembre), but only al-Hurriyya is
published in Arabic.
The eight Tunisian weekly newspapers in Arabic actually
appear on different days of the week so that, between the Arabic and
French-medium publications (including magazines), a reader has at
his or her disposal approximately an equal number of publications in
each language every day. As for the foreign publications, the score
is clearly better for French.
Considering the attitudes of readers, it is important to note
that the better-educated generally prefer French-medium news
publications due to their better quality, variety of information, and
commentary. Furthermore, the overall poor quality of the Tunisian
newspapers and magazines in both languages provides bilingual
readers with a stronger incentive to read non-Tunisian papers, like
Le Monde, which appear in major Tunisian cities on the same day as
Educated readers also have access to international
in France.
publications, such as Jeune Afrique, a news magazine concerned
with African/Middle-Eastern issues, which is published in French.
This situation further supports the idea that Tunisian
language planning, as a means of social selection, serves to maintain
or regenerate elites. Readers, who prefer to read in French and who
are usually either closer to or actually part of the influential elites,
always manage to keep an edge on the rest of the population by
being better informed and by gaining a better understanding of the
world around them.
As for the spread of French in the general environment, it
will suffice to make the following observations: first, with respect
to literacy as well as everyday conversation, French is used quite
extensively by many middle- and upper-class people in urban
Tunisia. It is also more commonly used by educated Tunisian
women as opposed to men, regardless of their socio-economic
status, as it is believed to confer upon them a degree of
sophistication and prestige. Second, it is not at all uncommon for
educated Tunisians to initiate and hold a conversation in French,
to the
18 Daoud
whether among friends or while conducting official business

(Bachouch, 1987). Third, Tunisia has two radio stations and two
television channels, with one channel or station in each medium
broadcasting in French. Furthermore, the French television channel
is a mere hook-up to Antenne 2, which broadcasts directly from
France for many more hours a day than the Arabic channel. Finally,
French is often preferred to Arabic in the publications of various
organizations or associations.
It should be clear from this survey of the language situation
in Tunisia that the Arabization effort has been somewhat successful
in education but not in the other domains affecting the socio-political
structure and the population at large. Although Arabic has been
promoted, French still has a firm foothold at the level of individuals,
groups, and institutions. What is more important, however, is that
most Tunisians seem to have adopted a French, or more generally, a
Western value system as a result of the ruling elite's policy of

maintaining French at such a high level of functional use in the
country.
This is borne out by some of the points mentioned above

such as the attitudes reflected in the elementary school textbooks
studied by Bchir (1980a, 1980b) and the prestige associated with the
use of French by certain social groups in conversation,
correspondence, and so forth. Additional support for this claim can
be found in social customs that have been adopted from the West
(perhaps an extreme example of which is purchasing Christmas
decorations, chocolate, and pastry as part of the New Year
celebrations in some urban areas). A Western orientation is also
evident in certain intellectual circles which associate the Arabic
language and Arab traditions with obscurantism, regression, and
backwardness, while anything French or Western is associated with
openness, progress, and forward-looking thought.
THE RULING ELITE

In this section,
and shed some
light
we
will focus
on
its
on the ruling
and goals
attitudes
elite in
in
Tunisia
view of the
contradictory positions it has taken in the last ten years with respect
to Arabization and Francophonie (see discussion below).
19
Arabization as a Tool in Domestic and Foreign Policy
The official Tunisian policy of promoting Arabization has

been championed since 1956 by a small group of intellectuals within
the political elite led by Mohamed Mzali, who headed several
ministries, especially the Ministry of Education, for ten years and
then served as Prime Minister from April, 1980 to July, 1986. The
members of this group are, for the most part, former students of alSadiqiyya High School, but they are also graduates of French
universities. They are, therefore, perfectly bilingual, fully aware of
their country's Arab-Islamic heritage, and, at the same time, highly
influenced by Western system of values. While these people
presented Arabization as a means for consolidating Tunisia's
its national
identity (the latter notion is referred to as Tunisification 5 ), the facts
suggest that, by and large, Arabization was variously encouraged or
halted for other reasons.
At the level of domestic policy, and particularly in education,
Arabization was encouraged by the government in the mid-1970s in
order to contain the expansion among university students of
"destructive Marxist thought," which was believed to have been
introduced through exposure to French. At that time, philosophy, a
subject taken in the final year of secondary school, was taught in
French, and hundreds of students, who passed their baccalaureate
exams and went to university, had been influenced by the ideas of
Marx and Lenin, whose works constituted the bulk of the
philosophy course. At the start of the 1976-77 academic year,
therefore, a decision was made to teach philosophy in Arabic.
The critics of this decision were quick to uncover the
government's real intentions and did not hide their fear of its
implications.
Youssef Seddik, a philosophy inspector for the
Ministry of Education and a journalist, wrote that the Frenchspeaking Tunisian philosophy teachers "refuse this rush to the past
or to missionary thinking upheld by those who have misunderstood
Arabization or misled it by imposing a theologizing view on it."
Seddik added that "the content of the arabized philosophy syllabus is
below the requirements for modernity. Worse: it is attached to the
old tenets of obscurantism, and no Tunisian would accept this
regression" (cited in Grandguillaume, 1983, p. 61; author's
translation from the original French).
This criticism was justified, in part, because the Arabization
of philosophy entailed shifting the focus from certain topics to
others in the syllabus.
Thus, Marxist thought received less
initially
Arab-Islamic cultural character and for confirming
20 Daoud
and psychoanalysis,
while Arab-Islamic thought, together with topics such as
epistemology, the philosophy of language, and morality, received
more attention. The shift in focus was, of course, enhanced by the
scarcity of Arabic- language sources for the former set of topics and
the relative abundance of such sources for the latter set.
But the Arabization of the teaching of philosophy is just one
attention, as did topics such as work, society,
example of how the policy of Arabization was affected either

negatively or positively for the sake of controlling student unrest and
preempting the development of rival political elites. For, one should
note that, on the political scene in the early 1970s, the tension
between the government and the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist student
movement was at its highest point. Many who were in this

movement maintain that the ruling elite in power at the time, the
Destour Socialist Party, encouraged the formation of an Islamist
student group to counter the leftist movement.
Tracing the
development of the Islamist movement in Tunisia to the late 1960s,
when the official socialist policies failed and high school students
took to the streets shouting, "schooled or not, we have no future,"
Zghal (1979) writes that "starting in 1975, Islam as a mobilizing
ideological discourse entered for the first time since independence
the inviolate territory of the Left; i.e., the University" (p. 62;
author's translation from the original French).
However, subsequently, Arabization was blamed for the
spread of "the destructive ideas of Islamic fundamentalism." 6
Indeed, the close association between Arabic and Islam as well as
the force the language lends to the Muslim fundamentalist message
make Arabization a threat to the ruling elite's grip on power. For
Bourguiba, the leader of this elite, building a nation out of Tunisia
was a matter of separating religion from politics, a matter of
"Tunisifying" and modernizing a country where religion is still
capable of rivaling politics for power (Larif-Beatrix, 1988). Taking
a similar view, Zghal (1979) notes that "at the ideological level, the
most radical opposition in Tunisia is that between 'Bourguibism'
and the Islamic Movement" (p. 50; author's translation from the
original French).
At the foreign policy level, Arabization was used to attract
foreign investments from the Gulf countries. Promoting Arabization
helped to legitimize Tunisia as part of the Arab World in the eyes of
the Gulf financiers, who consequently considered the country
worthy of harboring Arab banking institutions and of receiving
development aid. Arab money was of course necessary to

implement the five-year economic development plan of 1981-86.
21
By the same token, more Arabization was deemed necessary to train

Tunisians to deal with Arab investors in their language.
Francophonie:
The Tunisian Perspective
Francophonie is a movement whose purpose is to maintain

and promote the use of French in the countries that have economic
and cultural ties to France, keeping in mind that these countries were
French colonies at one time or another. Given the changing policies
of language policy in Tunisia, Francophonie is relevant to this study
because the ruling elite's position regarding the French language
necessarily affects their attitude and decisions concerning
Arabization.
Tunisia participated in the first Francophonie summit

meeting held on February 17-18, 1986, in Paris, France. This
participation is particularly interesting because the Tunisian
representative to the summit was Mzali himself, then Prime Minister
and long-time proponent of Arabization. In his summit speech,
Mzali hailed "the Tunisian President's action of promoting French as
that of a pioneer of Francophonie." He maintained that Tunisia had
already retrieved its Arab-Islamic identity, successfully promoted
Arabic as its national language, and was using French as "an
auxiliary language" to gain access to modernity and scientific and
technological progress, as well as to broaden the cultural scope of its
people. He noted "the common cultural affinities, which form
strong ties between the Francophone countries," adding that "it is
vital for the Francophone peoples to constitute an economic,
scientific, and technological community." Finally, Mzali considered
the creation of an economic organization of Francophone countries
"a civilizational contract." 7
The entire speech belies a clear attachment to the French

language and French cultural values and provides evidence, after
more than thirty years of independence, that the political elite made a
consistent effort to promote bilingualism and biculturalism.
Commenting on
Leveau (1986) says, "The Maghreb

most part, intellectual products of the French
School. [They are] shaped by its system of values
They see
French education and culture as dissociated from the colonial
machine" (p. 120; author's translation from the original French).
this ruling elite,
nationalists are, for the
22 Daoud
CONCLUSION: THE TUG OF
WAR
The goals of this paper were to reconsider the issue of

Arabization in Tunisia at a time when it is no longer considered a
matter of public debate and to investigate the reasons behind the
promotion or retardation of Arabization as a language policy. The
issue was addressed within the theoretical framework of language
planning as a means to pursue and maintain power. Consequently,
the discussion was focused on the Tunisian political elite, that is, on
the actors who make decisions and who choose when and how to
implement and when and how not to implement these decisions.
This study has argued that it is really bilingualism and
biculturalism which have been promoted in Tunisia. Arabization per
se was promoted only to the extent that it solved the problems of the
ruling elite when its hold on power was weak or threatened. This
was true during the struggle for independence against the French
and later when internal unrest rose to a dangerous level among
university students. On the whole, the ruling elite in Tunisia has
mostly favored a policy of non-implementation because Arabization
constitutes a threat to their grip on power, as it did to the French
colonialists before them. This is borne out by the observation that
the Arabization effort has always been measured. Some researchers
(e.g., Payne, 1983) wonder why the ruling elite has not appointed
an official body-a language planning agency to implement or at
monitor Arabization. The answer seems clear: promoting
is not compatible with the value system and
the cultural model adhered to by the elite. Garmadi (1968) hinted at
this answer twenty years ago. He saw a "striking paradox" in that
the elite, which is greatly influenced by the French language and
culture, was the one implementing Arabization. But if Garmadi
were to analyze the language situation in Tunisia today, he would
find it much more complex.
During the early years of Tunisian independence, there were
mainly two opposing forces arguing over language. On one side,
were the Classical Arabists and other intellectuals who shared their
concern about the purity of Arabic; on the other were the
modernists, bilingual, for the most part, who wanted to promote
Arabic to the level where it could fulfill the social, educational, and
cultural functions of a modern language. The "tug of war" was,
therefore, between well-meaning nationalists on both sides, and
only the status of the language was at stake.
Later on, when it became clear that French was going to be
maintained indefinitely, the forces at both ends of the rope came to
least to
full-scale Arabization
23
be seen as supporters either of Arabic, the national language, or

French, the foreign language.
Thus, a cultural dimension
complicated the situation, because each language is not only the
symbol but the vehicle of a cultural model. And thus Tunisia once
again has had to face the question of which societal model it was
aiming for, not only from the linguistic, but also the cultural and
ideological point of view.
The outcome of the present situation is difficult to predict, as
is the direction in which Arabic is evolving in terms of policy, use,
and even structure. One thing is noticeable though: the ruling elite's
legitimacy is now being challenged partly as a result of what
counter-elites perceive as its sustained but covert effort to preserve
the French language and cultural model, otherwise known as the
"modernist model."
Tunisia
is
thus undergoing a transitional phase
which power may be transferred
to a counter-elite. But whatever

the ultimate outcome, language planning with respect to Arabic will
in
play a decisive role in legitimizing the future ruling
elite.
Acknowledgements
I would like
comments on
Robert Cooper and Clifford Prator for their helpful

and two anonymous reviewers for their
suggestions on the later version submitted to Issues in Applied Linguistics.
Any deficiencies that remain are mine.
to thank
earlier drafts of this paper
NOTES
*
This paper evolved out of a term project at UCLA in Spring 1987. It was
then revised on the basis of supplementary data I gathered in Tunisia during the
summer of 1989 through
a formal investigation of the language situation in education

and the media, and through informal contact and observation of language use in the
government administration and among the public. Several observations about
language use in these areas are also drawn from my professional experience in Tunisia
as a language teacher and administrator in secondary school. An earlier version of
this paper was presented at the Middle-Eastern Studies Association (MESA)
Conference, Toronto, Canada, November 15-18, 1989.
2 The term 'bilingualism' is used together with 'biculturalism' to convey the

notion that the implementation of a bilingual language policy in Tunisia is not
merely focused on encouraging the learning of French as a foreign language to
broaden the student's horizon, as it is the case with English language teaching, for
example. While cultural enrichment is of course part of official policy, I will argue
that there is a desire and a deliberate effort on the part of the ruling elite to exercise
political control through language planning, and that this desire is combined with a
24 Daoud
lack of confidence in Arabic as a language capable of fulfilling the communicative
needs of a modern Tunisia.

*
Section
(A
for Arabic)
was an experimental section at the secondary

It was instituted in 1958 as
school level where instruction was given in Arabic only.
part of the first educational reform in Tunisia under the direction of
Mahmoud
Messaadi, then Minister of National Education. The reform was announced by

President Bourguiba on June 25, 1958 at al-Sadiqiyya High School. Section A was
dropped after the first group of students had graduated in 1964 and was never
reinstituted (Grandguillaume, 1983, 47, 172).
Salem Ghazali,
communication.
* Tunisification,
Institut
Bourguiba des Langues Vivantes, Tunis, personal
according to Mzali, means that Tunisia has its own

its geographical position, national history,
personality as a nation in view of
and language. Tunisification means neither a split

from Arabism nor the suppression of foreign languages (Grandguillaume, 1983, pp.
civilization, heritage, religion,
Bechir Ben Slama, a close colleague of Mzali, who directed the Ministry of
"It has never been possible to separate the issue of
Tunisification from the issue of Arabization or vice versa, on condition that the term
54-55).
Cultural Affairs, wrote:
Arabization does not carry any connotations of specific political tendencies contrary
to the will of the
Tunisian people to remain Tunisian; in other words, in control of.

and not melted into another people whoever they may be" (cited
their destiny
in
Salem, 1984,
p.
188).
6 Impact International, London, 3/27-4/9 1987.

'
Text of Mzali's speech printed
in
L'Action, Tunis, February 18, 1986;
author's translation from the original French.
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Mohamed Daoud
University and
He
has taught
is
CNRS.
holds an M.A. in Linguistics from San Diego State
currently a doctoral student in applied linguistics at
EFL and ESP
in his native country, Tunisia,
and
ESL
Standard Arabic in the U.S. His research interests include reading

contrastive discourse analysis, and language policy and planning.
UCLA.
and Modern
in
EFL/ESP,
26 Daoud
APPENDIX A
Chronology of Decisions Concerning Arabization
in Tunisian Schools
(Updated from Grandguillaume, 1983)
June 25, 1958: First reform of the educational system

- Closing of the Qur'anic schools and laicization of education
- Arabization of 1st and 2nd years of elementary school (i.e., all
subjects taught in Arabic; French dropped as subject of
instruction)
-
Creation of Section A, a high school section in which
were taught in Arabic

September 16, 1969
- Reintroduction of French as a subject of instruction
all
subjects
in 1st
and 2nd
years of elementary school
March
21, 1970
-
Mzali, Minister of National Education, declares that the government
is
considering dropping French in 1st year of elementary school
October 1,1971
- French dropped
October 1, 1976
- French dropped
October
in 1st
in
year of elementary school
2nd year of elementary school
Arabization of history and geography in secondary school
Arabization of philosophy in 7th (final) year of secondary school
1977
1,
-
Arabization of 3rd year, elementary school
Mzali declares he
is in
favor of maintaining French as a subject in
4th-6th years of elementary school
September
-
16,
1979
Arabization of 4th year, elementary school

French maintained as a subject and taught 3 hours/week in 4th year,
elementary school
September
-
16,
1980
Arabization of 5th year, elementary school; French maintained as in

4th year
September
-
1981
Arabization of 6th (final) year, elementary school; French maintained
as in 4th and 5th years
Arabization of 1st year, secondary school; French maintained as a
subject taught 5 hours/week as the medium of instruction for
mathematics
1982
Arabization of 2nd and 3rd years, secondary school; French maintained
September
-
16,
16,
as in 1st year of secondary school
September
16,
27
1986
Reintroduction of French as a subject in 2nd and 3rd years, elementary

school taught 5 hours/week
Increase in French instruction from 3 to 5 hours/week in 4th-6th

years, elementary school
June 30, 1986

-
Former President Bourguiba declares
Creation of 5 pilot secondary schools (Lycee Bourguiba
that poor achievement in

mathematics in elementary and secondary school is due to lack
of proficiency in French
September 15, 1988
- French dropped in 2nd year, elementary school
September 15, 1989
- French reintroduced in 2nd year, elementary school
Sfax,
1
Le Kef, Gafsa) where French
is
the
1
,
Ariana 2 ,
medium of
instruction in mathematics, science, and technology.

Lycee Bourguiba actually started as a French-medium pilot school on September 16,
1983.
Lyc6e Ariana also started in 1983, but it was an English-medium pilot school. As of
September 16, 1989, it became a French-medium school.
28 Daoud
APPENDIX B
Arabization in Tunisian Administration
Arabic
Ministry'
1.
3. Justice
4.
Education
5.
6.
Defense
Foreign Affairs
+
+
+
7.
Information
8.
Culture
9. Social Affairs
&
Youth
12.
Sports
Health
11. Public
Housing
&
Infrastructure
13. Transportation
14.
15.
Tourism & Crafts

Communication
16. Agriculture
17.
Planning &Finance
&
18.
Energy
19.
Commerce
Key:
French
++
++
++
Prime
2. Interior
10.
Mining
&
(++...-)
(-...++)
(+...+)
(+...?)
(?...+)
Industry
=
=
=
=
=
?
?
+
+
+
+
+
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
++
monolingual (Arabic)
monolingual (French)
bilingual
arabized with occasional use of French
French-medium with occasional use of
Arabic.
2
Nineteen ministries, constituting the basic governmental departments, were

counted; however, the reader should keep in mind that there may be more or fewer
ministries at any point in time. For instance, in the latest government (formed in
October, 1989) the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Information were joined
into one ministry.
In the government of July, 1988, there were 21 ministries, with
separate Ministries of Commerce and Industry as well as a Ministry of Education
(National Education for elementary and secondary separate from a Ministry of Higher
Education
&
Scientific Research for higher education).
APPENDIX C
Newspapers and Magazines 1,2
in
Arabic
Tunisian newspapers
Tunisia
Bilingual
French
29
Performance of ESL Students

Minimal Competency Test
on
State
James Dean Brown

University of Hawaii at
Manoa
The Hawaii State Test of Essential Competencies (HSTEC) is a

minimal competency test which students must pass to graduate from high
school. This paper focuses on differences in HSTEC (Form G) performance
between 300 ninth grade students of limited English proficiency (SLEP) and the
318 ninth grade students used in the original norming sample (NORM group).
The analyses indicate that SLEP students form a distinctly separate population
from the NORM group (F = 206.21, p < .01) with SLEP students scoring 26.14
points lower than the NORM group on average. At the same time, those
subtests which the SLEP students found to be more difficult were
Though there were no
correspondingly difficult for the NORM group.
significant differences found among the various SLEP group ethnicities, there
were significant differences among the HSTEC subtests and for interactions
between ethnicity and the subtests. The results are discussed in terms of
language training that some of the SLEP students should receive so that they can
demonstrate their true abilities on the HSTEC.
INTRODUCTION
The effects of language and culture on standardized test
scores has been a controversial issue in the educational testing
literature for years (e.g., Kennedy, 1972), and it remains an
important concern as large numbers of immigrant children in the
United States are coming up against various types of standardized
tests (e.g., NCTPP, 1990; Schmidt, 1990). This is especially true
in the State of Hawaii, where the mixing of many different cultures
has been a sociopolitical trend for over a century.
The Hawaii State Test of Essential Competencies (HSTEC)
is a minimal competency test that has been administered in the State
of Hawaii since 1983. The HSTEC is a requirement for graduation
in Hawaii in that it allows students to demonstrate satisfactory
Regents
of the University of California
ISSN 1050-4273
Vol. 2 No.
199131-47
32
Brown
performance in 14 of the 15 Essential Competencies (see description

of the academic areas covered in the Materials section of this paper
below) that must be passed before a diploma will be issued in the
state. The fifteenth competency is in Oral Communication, which is
assessed by teacher observation. Students first take the HSTEC in
they do not pass, they may take it again in the
tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. Alternatively, students may
choose to pass performance tests administered by Essential
the ninth grade and,
if
Competencies Certification Centers.
The research reported
paper explores differences in

the performance of various subgroups of ESL students found within
the population of students who normally take the test ESL students
in this population are represented by a group called students of
limited English proficiency (SLEP). Membership in this SLEP
group is restricted to anyone who has been identified by the state
(based on native language and/or place of birth [DOE, 1982]) as a
nonnative speaker of English and who is therefore currently enrolled
in the SLEP program of supplementary instruction in English
language skills.
The overall purpose of this study was to determine both
in this
whether there are differences in performance between SLEP

students and the overall norm group taking the test and whether
there are differences among the major nationalities found within the
SLEP group. It was also hoped that the underlying causes of any
such differences could be identified to some extent. To those ends,
was organized around the following research questions:
the project
1)
What
HSTEC
arc the descriptive statistics for the

its Essential Competency subtests for
and each of
ninth grade
SLEP
students and for a ninth grade

the entire population?
norm group sampled from

2)
Do SLEP
students constitute a group significantly

group in terms of their
the
overall HSTEC scores?
different
3)
from
NORM
Are there any significant mean differences among

ethnic groups (as determined by self-reported
ethnicity) in the
SLEP
sample?
ESL Performance/Minimal Competency
Test
33
METHOD
Subjects
1989, 19,312 students took the HSTEC Form

(DOE, 1989). Of these students, 10,858 were in the ninth grade;
6,277 were in the 10th grade; 1,823 were in the 1 1th grade; 38 were
in the 12th grade (136 did not report their grade level). This is the
population of students to which the results of this study can
reasonably be generalized-a population made up of all grade levels
in all of the high schools on the major islands in the Hawaiian
In
May
archipelago.
The analyses
focused on the performances of

was the largest group of students and
in this study
ninth grade students since this
was the only group taking the HSTEC for the first time. If
differences in performance existed between SLEP students and the
norm, it was expected to be clearest at the ninth grade level because
those students who passed the HSTEC in the ninth grade would not
be taking
it
again in subsequent grades.
The goals of this study involved making comparisons, in

one way or another, between NORM group performance and SLEP
performance. The NORM group data were based on all ninth grade
students included in the final 1987 field test results for Form G.
These NORM group students, numbering 318, had been selected
from six high schools across the state such that they formed a
stratified sample (in terms of sex and ethnicity) of the entire
population. This sample included 51.9% males and 48.1% females
from the following ethnic backgrounds: Filipino (23.5%), Hawaiian
(20.6%), Japanese (15.6%), White (17.8%), and Other (22.5%).
These ethnicities were based on self-reported data.
SLEP students account for a relatively small proportion of

the entire population in the Hawaii schools and are spread fairly
thinly across the state. To obtain a representative sample of such
students, all SLEP students enrolled in the ninth grade at 16
different high schools were selected from the group of 10,858 ninth
graders who took Form G in May 1989. This SLEP group was
selected so that rural/urban and large/small high schools were
represented from each of the main islands. This sample, numbering
300 in total, was selected to be representative of the approximately
1,200 ninth grade SLEP students who took Form G. The SLEP
group included 54.3% males and 45.7% females from the following
Brown
34
ethnic backgrounds: Chinese (15%), Filipino (41%), Indochinese

(6%), Korean (9%), Samoan (14.7%), and Other (14.3%).
Materials
The original forms of the HSTEC were developed by the

Educational Testing Service, and other versions have subsequently
been supervised by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
Form G was used because it was one of the two current forms being
administered statewide, and data were therefore readily available. It
contained 140 multiple-choice items including ten items for each of
the following Essential Competencies (ECs):
1)
2)
3)
4)
Read and use printed materials

Complete commonly used forms
Demonstrate writing skills
[Not tested- -Oral competency assessed by
teacher observation]
5)
6)
7)
8)
Use computational skills

Use measuring devices
Interpret
common
Reach reasoned
visual symbols
solutions
14)
Distinguish fact from opinion

Use resources for learning
Identify effects of health abuse
Identify occupational requirements
Knowledge of U.S. government
Knowledge of political processes
Knowledge of citizen
9)
10)
11)
12)
13)
5)
The
was found
rights
have an internal consistency reliability (KR20) of .96 for the total scores and subtest estimates ranging from
.49 to .84 when administered to the ninth graders (Alter, Deck,
Nickel, 1987). The validity of the test was supported by clear-cut
item specifications and content analysis of the test forms.
test
to
&
Procedures
All of the students included in this study took the HSTEC
under similar large-scale testing conditions. In other words, test
booklets, number two pencils and machine- scorable answer sheets
were used everywhere. Though Form G of the HSTEC was
Test
35
administered at various times and at diverse sites across the state, all
students involved in this study took it as part of the Hawaii State
Department of Education's testing program. Thus the testing
conditions for the
group and SLEP students can be assumed
to have been about the same across the state.
NORM
Analyses
The demographic
data and test results were recorded for each

a spreadsheet program. All
statistics were calculated using either the ABSTAT (Anderson-Bell,
1989) or SYSTAT (Wilkinson, 1988) statistical analysis programs.
The analyses included descriptive statistics, frequencies, and
percentages, all of which were calculated to help in describing the
main groups and subsamples. Several F tests were used to compare
the
and SLEP groups: one for mean differences and another
to compare the variances produced by the two groups. Two-way
repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures were
used to make other mean comparisons for the fourteen essential
student on an
IBM AT computer using
NORM
competencies (ECs) as the repeated factor and

ethnicities as the other factor.
decisions was set at a
<
The alpha
SLEP
group
level for all statistical
.01.
RESULTS
This section will provide a straightforward technical report
of the results of this study, while the Discussion section that follows
will provide less technical explanations framed as direct answers to
the original research questions posed at the outset of this paper.
Descriptive Statistics
The
overall results
from the analysis of scores on the
HSTEC
shown in Table 1 for the NORM sample students and

SLEP students. The first two rows of these descriptive statistics
show the number of students (N) who took the examination and the
number of items (i.e., test questions) on each form. The mean,
Form
are
median, standard deviation (SD), minimum (Min) and maximum

(Max) scores, range, reliability (K-R20), and standard errors of
measurement (SEM) are reported in the rows that follow:
36
Brown
TABLE
Summary
Descriptive Statistics for

for Ninth
Statistic
NORM and SLEP Samples
Grade Only
Norm Sample
SLEP
Students
Test
37
that the SEM was correspondingly higher. Regardless of this

small difference in reliability, the test appears to be acceptably
reliable for both groups.
One observation that surfaced early in this study was that
some members of the SLEP group were passing most of the
HSTEC subtests and could be presumed to be within easy range of
passing the remaining subtests during the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth
grades. In order to further study the levels of performance among
the SLEP students, their previously assigned Department of
Education (DOE) English proficiency ratings were examined. These
proficiency ratings were based on scores either from the Language
Assessment Scales (Avila
Duncan, 1977) or Basic Inventory of
Natural Language (Herbert, 1979), which were converted to a
and
&
common
scale
At
students
(DOE,
1982).
the outset of this study,
who had received
it
also
seemed apparent
that those
a DOE proficiency rating of Non-English
Proficient (NEP) were a distinct group which scored much lower

than all other students within the SLEP category (see Table 2). As
such, the NEP students were initially treated as a separate group.
The remaining SLEP students were divided into groups based on the
number of ECs that they passed as follows: the HIGH group (those
who passed 10 or more of the 14 EC subtests, the MIDDLE group
who passed between five and nine ECs, and the LOW group
(students who passed between zero and four ECs). To pass any
(those
given EC, a 70% score was required (or seven correct answers out
of the ten questions) on that subtest. The performances of the
HIGH, MIDDLE, and
groups as well as the NEP students are
reported for each EC in Table 2. The mean, standard deviation, and
number of students are reported in each case.
Table 2 shows how consistently the NEP student
performance resembles that of the
group more than it does that
of the HIGH and MIDDLE groups. This similarity in performance
may indicate that the
and NEP students form a single, more
homogeneous group that is having considerable difficulty with the
HSTEC. Table 2 also reveals how the MIDDLE and HIGH groups
perform incrementally better than the lowest two groups on every
subtest, and that the HIGH group performs better than the
group on all but two of the subtests. These results indicate that not
all of the SLEP students are at risk of failing the HSTEC.
The
identification of those students who are likely to fail and prediction
of their HSTEC performances are discussed elsewhere (J.D.
LOW
LOW
LOW
NORM
Brown, 1990).
38 Brown
u
u
u
8.
E
o
U
U
ON
3
oo
CN
U
W
"3
t*-
CJ
C/3
O.
3
O
u.
nO
00
X)
in
U
w
(X
W
OO
m
U
UJ
CN
O
as
O
OO OO
The
Effects of Ethnicity on
HSTEC
Test
39
Performance
Another set of analyses examined ethnicity and differential

performance on the 14 Essential Competencies. The purpose of
these analyses was to discover any existing patterns that might point
to contrastive cultural or language problems amenable to
remediation. To that end, descriptive statistics were calculated for
each ethnic group. Then the means of the ethnic groups on each of
the Essential Competencies were analyzed for significant
differences.
Overall Comparisons of Ethnic Groups

Table 3 shows the means, standard deviations, and number
of subjects for each ethnicity. All ethnicities were identified by selfreported data on place of birth, first language, and language spoken
at
home:
TABLE 3
40
Brown
TABLE
Two- Way Repeated-Measures
ANOVA Results for Essential
Competencies (ECs) by Ethnicity
SOURCE
BETWEEN GROUPS
df
SS
MS
Test
TABLE 5
Descriptive Statistics for Essential Competencies and Ethnicity Groupings*
FACTOR
LEVEL
41
42
Brown
Koreans on EC5, for the Filipinos on EC1 1, etc. The point is that
such relative differences in performance among the ethnic groups
throughout the data are the cause of the significant interaction effects
reported in Table 4. Thus the significant interaction effects found in
Table 4 are an indication that different groups perform better or
worse on different ECs. However, when the effect is averaged out
across ECs, the overall mean performances were not found to be
significantly different for
Mean
Scores on
GROUP
NORM Group
ETHNICITY.
TABLE 6
EC Subtests for NORM Group and Predominant Ethnicities
EC1
EC2
EC3
EC5
EC6
EC7
EC8
Test
43
Concerning the comparisons between the ethnicities and the

group, it was pointed out in the discussion of Table 1 that
the average overall performance of the SLEP students (i.e., all
ethnic groups taken together) was found to be 63.46 points, while
the mean for the NORM group was 89.60. This difference was also
found to be statistically significant (F = 206.21, p < .01). More
importantly, however, the difference between means for the SLEP
groups was a large 26.14 points, which indicates that
and
NORM
NORM
NORM
the
students scored 41% higher than the SLEP students.
Clearly, the overall difference in performance between SLEP and
students is also reflected in each of the individual EC results
as shown in Table 6. While the sources of systematic difference
which are of most interest in this study are the variations in ethnic
background, there may be many other underlying causes.
NORM
DISCUSSION
Research Question
What are the descriptive statistics for the HSTEC and each of its
Essential Competency subtests for the ninth grade SLEP students
and for a ninth grade norm group sampled from the entire
population?
shown in Table 1 indicate that the
scores are reasonably well centered and dispersed
for both the
and SLEP groups. However, more detailed
analysis of the descriptive statistics for groups within the SLEP
sample, whether based on the HIGH, MIDDLE, LOW, and NEP
categories, or ethnicity (see Tables 2 and 3), indicate that such
overall statistics miss important aspects of what is going on in these
data. For instance, some SLEP students perform above the mean of
the
group and some ethnic groups appear to outperform
The
overall
descriptive statistics
HSTEC
NORM
NORM
others.
44
Brown
Research Question 2
Do SLEP students constitute a group significantly different from

NORM group in terms of their overall HSTEC scores?
From
the
the examination of the descriptive statistics presented
and 2, it appears that the SLEP students, as defined in

this study, do indeed constitute a separate population. Not only was
a statistically significant difference found between the overall means
of the two groups (SLEP vs. NORM), but the difference was
meaningful-amounting to 26.14 points. The SLEP group was also
found to be significantly more homogeneous in the way that their
scores varied around the mean. Thus the SLEP students can fairly
safely be considered a separate population within the total group that
in
Tables
took the
test.
However, it was also clear that SLEP students vary in

important ways in terms of their scores on the whole HSTEC, as
well as on the individual ECs. By separating SLEP students (on the
basis of the number of ECs that they passed) into the HIGH,
MIDDLE, and
groups, it became apparent that the HIGH
group of SLEP students performed better on average than the
group students. Hence, not all SLEP students are at risk of
LOW
NORM
LOW
HSTEC. However, the

and NEP groups appear to
be similar in average performance and are clearly the students that
must be carefully identified as those most at risk of failing the
HSTEC (see J.D. Brown, 1990 for more on identifying such
failing the
students).
Research Question 3
Are there any
significant
mean
differences among ethnic groups (as

in the SLEP sample?
determined by self-reported ethnicity)
With a few exceptions, the overall difference between SLEP

and NORM group students was also found at the subtest level. The
one exception was that two of the groups, the Chinese and Koreans,
performed above the
on EC5, which tested use of
NORM
computational skills (see Table 6). In addition, the average score of

42 of the SLEP students, i.e., those categorized into the HIGH
group, was higher than the
group average on all but two of
the ECs.
NORM
Test
45
Despite these exceptions, the performance of SLEP students

MIDDLE, LOW, and NEP groups was consistently
lower than the
group on each subtest. Moreover, those
subtests which the
group found to be more difficult were
also correspondingly more difficult for the SLEP groups.
In
classified in the
NORM
NORM
no significant differences were found for ethnicity, though

were clearly significant differences between the ECs, as well
as significant interaction effects (see Tables 4, 5, and 6).
addition,
there
CONCLUSIONS
This study has discovered a number of apparent patterns in
which can and should be used to help those SLEP students
are most at risk of failing the minimal competency test:
the data
who
1)
SLEP students can fairly safely be considered a separate

population within the total group that took the test because
a significant difference was found in mean performance
between the SLEP students and the
group. In
addition to being significant, this difference was a
meaningful 26.14 points (on a scale of 140).
The performance of SLEP students classified in the
and NEP groups indicates that these are the students who
must be identified for further help (see J.D. Brown, 1990
for strategies to identify such students).
NORM
2)
3)
LOW
No
were found for
ethnicity, though
between the ECs,
as well as interactions between ethnicity and ECs. It was
also noted that those subtests which the NORM group
found to be more difficult were also correspondingly more
significant differences
there
were
clearly significant differences
difficult for the
As hypothesized
SLEP groups.
at the outset
of this paper, the students'
backgrounds (in terms of language and ethnicity) do affect their

scores on standardized tests at least in Hawaii. It seems obvious
that those students needing help in overcoming this effect should
receive comprehensive ESL training commensurate with the
guidelines provided in Hale (1974) and TESOL (n.d.). However,
in Hawaii, we feel that additional types of training might be
necessary. Accordingly, specially designed materials have recently
been developed to provide SLEP students with training in the
46
Brown
general linguistic and cultural content of the subject matter

competencies being assessed by the HSTEC (Sajna & Brown,
1990), as well as with test-taking strategies (Z.A. Brown, 1989)
can also help them to succeed. The purpose of all of these
efforts is to provide the LOW/NEP students with a "level playing
field" when they sit down to demonstrate their subject matter
competencies on the HSTEC. Such additional types of training may
also prove useful in helping SLEP students in other states which
that
have minimal competency
tests.
Suggestions for Future Research
As with most
research,
more questions have been raised
in
the process of doing this study than have been answered directly.
These include:
1)
Will similar results be obtained during subsequent

years in the State of Hawaii, as well as in other
parts of the United States?
2)
Are there
identifiable linguistic characteristics for
individual subtests, or even individual items, which

might account for the observed overall differences
between
3)
4)
NORM group performances?
in the degree to which the

performances of different ethnic groups are affected
by linguistic, cultural, and background factors?
How can ESL students who are at risk of failing a
state minimal competency test because of language
problems be identified before taking the test so that
they can receive appropriate linguistic instruction?
hoped
It is
SLEP and
Are there variations
that further studies will be
conducted along these
lines.
NOTES
The author would
like to
in entering data for this project.
thank Ms. Catherine Sajna for her considerable help

would also like to thank Dr. Zoe Ann Brown of the
Hawaii State Department of Education and Dr. Thom Hudson of the Department of ESL
at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for their careful readings of earlier versions of
this paper.
Test
47
REFERENCES
Anderson-Bell.
(1989).
ABSTAT.
Arter, J.A., Deck, D.D.,
&
Parker,
Nickel, P.
CO: Anderson-Bell Corp.

Hawaii state test of essential
report. Portland, OR: Northwest Regional
(1987).
competencies (HSTEC) technical

Educational Laboratory.
Avila, E.A.D. & Duncan, S.E. (1977). Language assessment scales (2nd ed.). San
Rafael, CA: Linguametrics Group.
Brown, J.D. (1990). Identifying students at linguistic risk on a state minimal
competency test. Unpublished manuscript. Honolulu: University of Hawaii.
Brown, Z.A. (1989). Test busters. Kaaawa, HI: Excell.
DOE. (1982). Identification, assessment and programming system for students of
Honolulu: Office of
limited English proficiency: A systems manual.
Instructional Services, Hawaii State Department of Education.
DOE. (1989). Hawaii state test of essential competencies (Form G). Honolulu: Test
Development Section, Hawaii State Department of Education.
Hale, T.M. (1974). Some guidelines concerning the role of the regular classroom
teachers and school administrators in assisting the non-English-speaking
students in Hawaii's public schools. Honolulu: Office of Instructional
Services, Hawaii State Department of Education.
(1979). Basic inventory of natural language. San Bernardino, CA:

Checpoint Systems.
Kennedy, G. (1972). The language of tests for young children. In Bernard Spolsky
(Ed.), The language education of minority children (pp. 164-181). Rowley,
MA: Newbury House.
NCTPP. (1990). From gatekeeper to gateway: Transforming testing in America.
Boston: National Commission on Testing and Public Policy, Boston
Herbert, C.H.
College.
& Brown, J.D. (1989). English for Hawaii slate essential competencies.
Honolulu: Hawaii State Department of Education.
Schmidt, P.
Schools report progress in assessing limited English(1990).
proficiency students. Education Week, 9 (30), 1, 19.
Sajna, C.
TESOL.
(no date).
A memo:
Educating children with limited English.
Washington,
DC: TESOL.
Wilkinson, L.
(1988).
SYSTAT: The system for
statistics.
Evanston, IL:
SYSTAT,
Inc.
J.D.
Brown
is
Director of the English Language Institute and a
graduate faculty of the Department of
ESL at the
member
University of Hawaii at
of the
Manoa.
He has published numerous articles on language testing and curriculum

development as well as a book on the critical reading of statistical studies
(Cambridge University Press).

Fool for Love
in
Sam
Shepard's
Vaidehi Ramanathan
University of Southern California
This study in linguistic stylistics examines the coherence in Sam

Shepard's play Fool for Love by focussing on the relationship of speech
exchanges to frames and the relationship of frames to one another. A frame,
defined as the activity that the speakers are engaged in, consists of two types: (1)
single-speaker frames, which involve only one speaker and an implied or passive
listener, and (2) multi-speaker frames, which involve more than one speaker. The
following paper, however, will examine only multi-speaker frames.

Because frame analysis enables one to focus on units larger than those
usually examined in linguistic stylistics, it can be seen to provide a clearer
understanding of textual coherence in dramatic texts. Specifically, the study

argues that both coherence in Shepard's play results when speech exchanges and
frames are formed into patterns which the reader perceives as unified wholes, and
that coherence may result when even discontinuous utterances are organized into
a pattern which the reader can perceive as a unified whole. On a larger scale, it is
shown that discontinous frames can themselves be arranged into a pattern which
can be perceived as coherent by the reader, and that overall coherence depends not
upon continuity between frames, but rather on the arrangement of discontinous
or continuous frames into a coherent whole.
INTRODUCTION
Early studies in linguistic stylistics focused on minute
elements such as cohesive devices as the primary units of analysis
Hasan, 1976). The
(Thome, 1965; Halliday, 1970; Halliday
chief drawback with such an approach is that a distanced, holistic
&
text in its entirety is hardly ever possible. Attention did

gradually shift from this narrow focus to a slightly wider view.
Speech exchanges (chunks of discourse consisting of a series of
utterances between two speakers) became the primary unit of study
(Burton, 1980; Noguchi, 1984). But the problem with these studies
was that no clear limits were set within which the terms of discourse
view of the
ISSN 1050-4273
Vol. 2 No.
1991 49-76
50 Ramanathan
could be encased. Thus, gaining insight into what constituted the

structural unity of a text
was
still
quite elusive.
This study proposes that in order to see a text as a coherent

whole, it is important to break it up into the largest, most clearly
defined units of discourse possible. Attention can then be focused
on the elements which make up these units as well as on the way in
which they function within the play as a whole. More specifically,
attention can be focused on three areas: (1) how the smaller elements
(e.g., topic words and transitional phrases, both of which will be
discussed later in the analysis) make up and sustain a speech
exchange or a piece of conversation (i.e., a series of logical, relevant
utterances between two speakers); (2) how utterances and speech
exchanges are incorporated into larger units (frames); and (3) how
frames themselves and the relationship between frames result in
coherence.
Such attention will be achieved by linguistically
analyzing the principles governing coherence in Sam Shepard's
(1984) play, Fool for Love.
Given the aims of the present study, Shepard's play
(hereafter, FFL), can provide valuable data. The primary reason it
was chosen for the examination of the principles of coherence in
drama is that, as with many contemporary dramatists (e.g., Beckett,
Ionesco, and Pinter), Shepard essentially depicts talk or
conversation as ends in themselves. Shepard's dialogues, therefore,
lend themselves conveniently to an analysis which focuses mainly
on language.
What makes Shepard's play FFL especially attractive for this

study is its seeming disjointedness or lack of coherence. The play is
characterized, for example, by sudden shifts in topics within speech
exchanges and by the occasional lack of transitional phrases between
one topic and another. However, this disjointedness may be
illusory if utterances are seen as fitting within frames. That is, even
though the utterances may be discontinous, a certain continuity may
appear if these utterances are seen as parts of larger units. Similarly,
while the sudden transition from one activity to another in the play
creates a seeming disjointedness between frames, continuity
between frames might become apparent if all these frames are seen
as incorporated into a still larger frame. By continually seeing
smaller, disjointed elements as parts of naturally occurring larger
units, and by focusing on the relationship between those larger
units, an approach which uses frame analysis may be able to
establish continuity and coherence in FFL.
Since the field of linguistic stylistics (or linguistic criticism
Frames and Coherence 51

it is sometimes called) is by nature interdisciplinary, the present
study will make use of research conducted not only in linguistics,
but also in the associated areas of discourse analysis, sociology,
cognitive science, and literature. More specifically, this examination
of coherence will differ from traditional discourse studies of
literature in that it will concentrate on frame analysis, an aspect of
sociology and cognitive science which, to my knowledge, has thus
far not been used to examine coherence in literary texts. The first
section of this study lays out the theories of coherence and frames
adopted for this study; the next section analyzes selections from
Shepard's play in light of these theories; the final section draws
conclusions from the analysis.
as
Linde's Theory of Coherence

Several experts in discourse analysis, anthropology, and
Tannen 1979, 1982, 1987; Linde, 1987; Lundquist,
1985; Giora, 1985) have proposed different definitions of
coherence. This study adopts Linde's approach (1987). Defining
coherence very specifically, she says:
stylistics (e.g.,
'
Coherence is a property of texts; it is one set of relations by

which we may analyze a text. Specifically, the coherence of a
text consists of the relations that the parts of the text bear to
one another. A text may be described as coherent if its parts,

whether on the word level, phrase level, sentence level,
semantic level, or level of larger units can be seen as being in
a proper relation to one another and to the text as a whole.
(p.
346)
This particular study shall concern itself with cohering

devices at the word and phrase level (e.g., topic words, repetitions
of words and phrases). It will also adopt Linde's terms of causality,
continuity and discontinuity. Continuity and discontinuity will be
established by closely studying the dialogues in the play, FFL, in
terms of (a) whether or not utterances are related to each other, and
(b) whether or not utterances are related to the topic. Causality will
be established by isolating the causes of continuity or discontinuity
between utterances.
Linde (1987) develops and illustrates her approach to
coherence specifically in relation to the narration of life stories. She
states that a life story, both linguistically and psychologically, must
have the property of coherence, but this coherence is "not a property
52 Ramanathan
of the
life,
but rather an achievement of the speaker in constructing
the story" (p. 346).

One can, presumably, analyze coherence in drama along the
same lines. That is, adapting Linde's view, coherence is not a
property of the details of the story, but rather the result of the
dramatist's ability to construct a story such that those details form a
coherent whole. Going a step further, coherence is also the result of
way of making
sense of that story. The analyst, like the dramatist, looks for
causality and not connexity, for causality results from the
organization and not the mere relatedness of details. This study will
restrict itself to understanding coherence from the point of view of
the reader being able to perceive and use frames as a
the reader.
One
of the main objectives of this study is to show that

speech exchanges, as they occur in drama, may result
when discontinuous utterances are organized into a pattern which the
reader can perceive as a unified whole. Similarly, it will be shown
that discontinuous frames can also be arranged into patterns that
reveal themselves when closely studied by the reader.
This
arrangement (and perception) of discontinuous elements into a
coherent whole is explained by Linde (1987) as a form of
"management of discontinuity" which she calls "discontinuity as
continuity," a strategy by which a speaker "uses a series of
discontinuous events to establish that discontinuity forms a
continuity" (pp. 347-350).
coherence
in
Defining Frames
Linde's work on causality, continuity, and discontinuity
provides this study with adequate terms and definitions which may
be applied to an analysis of spoken discourse in drama. The
definition of frame, developed in and adopted for this study,
however, is a synthesis of the work of several theorists in various
related fields. The concept of frame has its roots in cognitive
science (Minsky, 1980; Agar
Hobbs, 1985), and it has been
adopted by many associated fields. For the purposes of this study, I
will define a frame as the activity the speakers are engaged in.
Defined in this way a frame can be seen as a unit of discourse larger
than the units previously described by discourse analysts.
Secondly, partly for the sake of convenience and partly because this
study is an examination of discourse in drama, frame is deliberately
limited to an activity involving speakers, rather than speakers and
&
hearers or speakers and listeners, though hearers and listeners are

not completely ignored. Participants in a conversation normally
consist of speakers and listeners or hearers, and insofar as a hearer
can also be a speaker and a speaker a hearer, the term speakers will
be used to refer to both types of participants regardless of their roles
Further, there are occasions and
at any particular moment.
conventions in drama which call for frames involving only a
speaker, or a speaker and a listener who does not contribute to the
conversation (e.g., a bystander). In such cases (e.g., soliloquies,
asides), the term speaker is a more appropriate term than speakerhearer.
A frame and its related parts is illustrated in Figure

Figure
1:
1:
Types of Frames
FRAME
1
Multi-Speaker
ipe
Structured
As can be
Single-Speaker
Unstructured
Activity
Activity
Topic
Topic
seen in Figure
1,
there are essentially
two types of frames:
around the activity that engages more than one speaker (a

multi-speaker frame), the other involving just one speaker (a singlespeaker frame). A multi-speaker frame, which this study examines,
one
built
includes two kinds of relationships, referred to by this study as the

structured relationship and the unstructured relationship. It is
argued that the kind of relationship existing between speakers
determines to a large extent the activities they will engage in and the
topics that can be discussed. A singlespeaker frame, on the other
hand, normally takes the form of an extended narrative, the telling of
a life story, a soliloquy, or the like. While a life story or extended
narrative implies the presence of a listener, it is important to note
54 Ramanathan
that the listener in these cases is often or largely passive,
contributing little or nothing to the interaction. Thus, such activities
can be seen as centering around just one speaker.
Not only does the activity the speakers engage in determine
the nature of the topics they will talk about, topics, to some extent,
also govern what speakers will say to each other. Continuity or
discontinuity in a sequence of utterances can thus largely be
determined by examining these utterances in relation to each other,

to the topic, and to the activity of the speakers.
Figure 1 also indicates that the kind of relationship between
speakers will determine, to a large extent, the activity and topic of
the talk. A structured relationship is bound by definite restrictions
which can be observed by the speakers as well as by outsiders.
This is a conventionalized relationship whose restrictions are those
of propriety, activity, and topic. An unstructured relationship, on
the other hand, is one in which these restrictions are not quite as
clear and may be lacking altogether.
Both structured and unstructured relationships are difficult to
illustrate by examples which cut across time and location, since
historical and cultural forces determine conventions. A structured
relationship can, perhaps, be suggested by the teacher-student
relationship. In
Western
societies, or at least in
contemporary
bound by certain
conventions and restrictions. Any utterance in which a student
overstepped one of these restrictions would be recognized by the
teacher as unexpected or discontinuous. Moreover, this
discontinuity would be recognized by observers familiar with the
American
universities, such a relationship is
conventions of the relationship.

An unstructured relationship
is
somewhat
easier than a
structured relationship to illustrate in the abstract. Perhaps the

clearest illustration of an unstructured relationship is that between a
husband and wife or between two lovers. If two lovers got together,
say, to discuss finances, either could introduce topics at will, and
even a complete change of topic might not amount to a violation of
the boundaries of the relationship. It is important to remember that in
an unstructured relationship the speakers have a past history and a
An utterance perceived as
shared knowledge to refer to.
discontinuous by an observer might thus seem so only because the
observer is not privy to the knowledge shared by the speakers.
Continuity or discontinuity of utterances within a speech
exchange is thus dependent in large part on the relationship that
Since it is easier to break the
exists between the speakers.

restrictions of a structured relationship, an utterance which does so
can be perceived to be discontinuous not only by the speakers (or at
least
one of them) but by outsiders as
well.
it is harder
because only
and because
In contrast,
to break the restrictions of an unstructured relationship

the speakers know and maintain those restrictions
speakers in an unstructured relationship can fall back on a

considerably greater amount of shared knowledge. In such a case,
what is perceived by particular speakers to be continuous (or at least
what is allowed to be continuous), then, can be perceived by an
observer to be discontinuous.
To sum up at this point, the kind of relationship existing
between speakers will determine, or at least limit, the kinds of
activities they can engage in. A structured relationship will permit a
narrower range of activities between speakers than an unstructured
relationship. Continuity and discontinuity, then, within speech
exchanges,
is
largely determined
by the relationship between the
speakers. Temporal connections between utterances, existing in the

speech exchanges of both structured and unstructured relationships,
might be a sufficient cause of continuity between utterances. While
in an unstructured relationship such a temporal ordering might not
exist, the utterances could still be continuous, depending upon the
degree of shared knowledge the speakers were willing to rely on.
Similarly, activities between speakers may be continuous or
discontinuous, depending on the implied or stated topic or on the
kinds of activities permitted by the relationship of the speakers.
Patterns in Multi-Speaker Frames
Thus far, this study has discussed the theory and definition
of frames and suggested an analysis of principles governing
structural unity and coherence of literary texts. The present section
will analyze Shepard's Fool for Love in terms of frames in an effort
and unstructured relationships in multispeaker frames. By exemplifying the main activities of the speakers
and the central themes of the play, the passages chosen for analysis
will provide key data in establishing the principles and patterns of
continuity, discontinuity, and coherence within and between multi-
to illustrate structured
speaker frames.
56 Ramanathan
Unstructured Relationships in Multi-Speaker Frames
The first passage for analysis, Example 1, illustrates not

only a pattern formed by discontinuous utterances within a frame but
This pattern,
also a pattern repeated throughout the play.
characteristic of the relationship between Eddie and May, is one of
approach-avoidance or attraction-rejection and is revealed here in the
activities of PLACATING and QUARRELING, which form two
separate subframes (activities) but which, as will be shown, may be
taken as one unit. Quarreling is here defined as a conversational
interaction involving overt verbal conflict, such as that between
Eddie and May throughout much of the play. Placating is defined as
actions on the part of one participant to calm or appease another,
such as in Eddie's continual efforts to quiet and soothe May's anger.
An analysis of the dialogue in Example 1 will show that the
two subframes, QUARRELING and PLACATING, are subsumed
under a still larger frame, namely, VACILLATING. Vacillation
may be defined as the irresolute movement between two or more
choices and can be seen in Eddie and May's continual hesitation
over whether or not they will stay together. As will be shown, this
indecisiveness is not only apparent both in their utterances and
activities, it is present in and mirrored by the pattern of discontinuity
existing within and between subframes.
The opening scene 2 of Shepard's Fool for Love introduces
the reader to the argumentative and vacillating nature of Eddie and
May's relationship. Eddie tosses his glove on the table and begins
to assure May he will never leave her.
Example
1:
VACILLATING
Eddie:
(seated, tossing glove
on the
Short pause) May, look,
Al
table.
May?
I'm not goin'
anywhere. See? I'm right here. I'm not gone.

Look, (she won't) I don't know why you won't
just look at me. You know it's me. Who else do
you think it is. (pause) You want some water or
somethin'? Huh? (he gets up slowly, goes
cautiously to her, strokes her head softly, she
stays
still)
May? Come
around here
sittin'
here
like this.
on.
You
can't just sit
How
anyway? You
long you been

want me to go outside
and get you something? Some potato chips or

something? (she suddenly grabs his closest leg
with both arms and holds tight burying her head
between his knees) I'm not gonna' leave. Don't
10
worry. I'm not gonna leave. I'm stayin' right

here.
already told ya'
that,
(she squeezes
tighter to his leg, he just stands there,
strokes her head softly)
Honey?
May?
Let go, okay?

Okay? (she
put you back in bed.
I'll
20
grabs his other leg and holds on tight to

both)
Come
some hot
on.
I'll
make you
You want some tea?
put you in bed and
tea or somethin'.
(she shakes her head violently, keeps holding

on) With lemon? Some Ovalune? May, you gotta'
let go of me now, okay? (pause, then she pushes
him away and returns to her original position)
Now just lay back and try to relax,
(he starts
push her back gently on the bed as he

pulls back the blankets. She erupts furiously,
leaping off bed and lashing out at him with her
fists. He backs off. She returns to bed and
stares at him wild-eyed and angry, faces him
Bl
to try to
30
squarely)
Eddie:
pause)
(after
You want me
to
go?
(She shakes her head.)
May:
No!
Eddie:
Well, what do you want then?
May:
You
Eddie:
May:
You
Eddie:
May:
Your
smell.
smell.
40
do.
been
drivin' for days.
fingers smell.
Eddie:
Horses.
May:
Pussy.
Eddie:
Come
May:
on, May.
They smell like
Eddie:
I'm not gonna' start this
May:
Eddie:
Rich pussy. Very clean.

Yeah, sure.
May:
You know
A2
Eddie:
came
B2
May:
don't need you!
Eddie:
May:
Eddie:
May:
it's
metal.
shit.
50
true.
to see if
you were
all right.
Okay, (turns to go, collects his glove

and bucking strap) Fine.
Don't go!
I'm goin'.
(He exits stage-left door, slamming
it
behind
him; the door booms.)

(agonized scream) Don't go!!!
(Shepard, 1984, pp. 21-22)
60
58 Ramanathan
Keeping in mind that a frame is the activity the speakers are

engaged in, the passage above may be seen as one overall frame of
VACILLATING. Al and A2 may be seen as components of the
subframe PLACATING, and Bl and B2 as components of the
subframe QUARRELING. In Al, Eddie promises May he will
never leave, strokes her head, tries to put her to bed, and offers her
potato chips and Ovaltine. May allows herself to be somewhat
placated in this frame and "squeezes tighter to his leg" (11. 17-18).
At B 1 however, May suddenly "erupts furiously" and lashes out at
Eddie "with her fists" (11. 30-32). Clearly, the activity the speakers
were engaged in has changed from PLACATING to
QUARRELING. They fight bitterly, with May facing Eddie
"squarely" and accusing him of being unfaithful. A2 and B2
represent sudden shifts in subframes. At A2, Eddie attempts once
again to PLACATE May ("I came to see if you were all right" 1. 52).
But at B2, May attacks Eddie ("I don't need you" 1. 53). The shift
from PLACATING (A2, 1. 51) to QUARRELING (B2, 1. 52) is a
repetition of the shift which occurred from PLACATING (Al, 1. 5)
to PLACATING (Bl, 1. 29). The later shift, however, is sudden in
comparison with the earlier, more gradual shift. The shift from
PLACATING to QUARRELING at A2 and B2 takes place within
one line; the shift from Al to.Bl occurs over the space of some 29
lines. The passage ends as Eddie slams the door and May pleads
,
"Don't go!!!" (1. 60).

The dramatized conversation in Example 1, in which Eddie
vacillates about whether he will stay or go, and May vacillates about
whether she wants him to stay or go can be summarized and
categorized by the word go. If repetition is one way of determining
topic, then the word "go" identifies the topic insofar as it (or one of
its variants such as "goin'," "gone," "leave,") is repeated nine times
in the passage.
Yet, this passage also shows several abrupt changes of

topics and subframes. At Bl, the topic suddenly changes from
Eddie's leaving or staying, summarized by the word go, to Eddie's
infidelity, summarized and categorized by the word smell. The
repetition of the word "smell" 4 times in 12 lines reflects this shift.
In A2, Eddie again attempts to PLACATE May by assuring her he
doesn't want to leave ("I came to see if you were all right," 1. 52),
reverting obliquely back to his original topic. At B2, May again
lashes out at Eddie ("I don't need you," 1. 53), continuing to
with him.
QUARREL
Eddie and May's exchanges in Example 1 exemplify how

and frames interrelate and influence one another.
As mentioned earlier, Eddie and May cannot make up their minds
whether they will stay together or part. Their indecisiveness is
topics, utterances,
reflected
in
the
movement between PLACATING and
QUARRELING,
and the constant shifting back and forth between

these frames is caused by and results in utterances which often seem
illogical and irrelevant to the preceding utterance. For instance,
May's utterance in line 39 ("You smell") is not an answer, or at
least, a direct answer, to Eddie's question in line 38 ("Well, what do
you want then"). Nor is Eddie's placating gesture in line 52 ("I
came
to see if you were all right") directly related to May's

insistence in line 5 1 that Eddie has been unfaithful ("You know it's
true").
In both cases, the seemingly irrelevant and discontinuous

responses result from the speaker's deliberate attempt to change the
topic (and thereby also the frame). In line 39, when May changes
the topic from Eddie's staying or leaving (go) to the topic of his
infidelity (smell), the frame changes from PLACATING to
QUARRELING. Eddie's utterance in line 52 indicates his attempt
to change the conversational topic from his infidelity to his staying,
and to change the frame from QUARRELING to PLACATING.
Although utterances between Eddie and May form a
discontinuous set, their speech exchanges within the designated
frames are not necessarily incoherent. In the first place, their
relationship is an intimate one, and hence, basically unstructured.
As was discussed earlier, in an unstructured relationship, not only
do the speakers have a certain amount of shared knowledge and past
history to rely on, they alone are truly aware of the boundaries and
restrictions of their relationship, and so what seems discontinuous to
an outsider (i.e., the reader of the play) may not seem discontinuous
to the speakers themselves.
Secondly, the utterances between Eddie and May form a
characteristic pattern. This pattern is one of approach- avoidance or
attraction-rejection, resulting from and reinforcing the speakers'
habitual vacillation. The repetition of this pattern allows the
formation of coherent speech exchanges. These speech exchanges
then can be seen as activities the speakers are engaged in, and the
activities themselves can be seen as coherent units of discourse
identified as subframes. Finally, the subframes of PLACATING
and QUARRELING are themselves subsumed under the larger
frame of
VACILLATING.
Thus, the pattern formed by seemingly
60 Ramanathan
discontinuous sets of utterances within the individual speech

exchanges is representative of and mirrored by the pattern formed by
discontinuous activities or subframes. This pattern may be
represented in Figure 2:
Figure 2
Example
1:
OVERALL FRAME: VACILLATING

I
SUBFRAMES
'
Between Subframes
Within Subframes
Approach
A1=PLACATING--Eddie's staying or going
I'm not gonna leave.
Approach-
-Eddie:
Approach-
-([May] squeezes tighter to
(11.
15-16)
[Eddie's] leg).
(11.
Avoidance
B1=QUARRELING -Eddie's
I
17-18)
infidelity
Now just lay back and
Approach
Eddie:
Rejection
([May] erupts furiously)
try to relax.
Approach
(11.30-32)
May:
Rejection
A2=PLACATING
You
Eddie:
came
were
B2=QUARRELING
Rejection
May:
Rejection
Eddie:
Approach
to see if
you
all right. (1.
52)
May:
activities
to go).
54).
Don't go!
VACILLATING
formed by utterances or by
59)
Okay. (Turns
(1.
The above diagram of

the pattern
39)
don't need you.
(1.
(1.
-Eddie's infidelity
smell.
-Eddie's staying or going
Approach
Avoidance
28)
(1.
(1.
60)
frame shows (1)
described in stage

directions within subframes, (2) the relationship of those utterances
or activities to each other and to the topic of the subframe, and (3)
the pattern formed between the subframes themselves. For instance,

within subframe Al (PLACATING), Eddie's utterance ("I'm not
gonna leave," 11. 15-16) and May's response {she squeezes tighter to
his leg x 11. 17-18) indicate the characters' attempts to be close to one
another. Hence, the pattern formed by the utterances and the

activities given in stage directions may be called approach-approach.
The subframe takes its name from Eddie's efforts to calm May
(PLACATING), and the topic of the subframe is Eddie's staying
Within subframe Bl
lay back and try
or going.
utterance
("Now just
(QUARRELING), Eddie's
to relax,"
28) may be seen
1.
as another attempt to be close to May, but May's response {she

erupts furiously 1. 30) and her utterance ("You smell," 1. 30) are a
rejection of Eddie. Hence, the pattern formed by the utterances and
the activities given in stage directions may be called approachavoidance or approach-rejection. The subframe takes its name from
the overt verbal conflict (QUARRELING), and the topic of the
,
subframe
is
Eddie's infidelity.
Similarly, since subframe A2 contains an utterance

suggesting approach on Eddie's part ("I came to see if you were all
right," 1. 52), the subframe takes its name from Eddie's continued
calm May (PLACATING). The topic is Eddie's staying

or going. Within subframe B2, however, May's utterance
indicating rejection ("I don't need you," 1. 53) is met by Eddie's
rejecting utterance and rejecting action ("Okay." [Turns to go}),
which in turn elicits May's utterance indicating approach ("Don't
go!," 1. 56). Hence, the pattern formed by the utterances and
activities in B2 may be called rejection-rejection-approach. The topic
The frame takes its
is a reversion back to Eddie's infidelity.
name from the overt verbal conflict (QUARRELING). The
suddenness of the shift in frames between A2 and B2 is due in part
effort to
change
and in part to the swift juxtaposition of

and QUARRELING.
It can be seen, then, that within subframes A 1 and A2 the
utterances and activities given in stage directions form a pattern of
approach-approach and that within subframes Bl and B2 the
utterances and activities given in stage directions form a pattern of
approach-avoidance. This pattern is also repeated on the larger scale
of the frames themselves, for it can be seen that as Al moves into
B 1 and as A2 moves into B2 the pattern of approach-avoidance is
repeated: Eddie and May attempt to be close to each other (Al, A2)
to the rapid
the activities
in topics
PLACATING
62 Ramanathan
but soon begin to fight (Bl, B2). In this way, the pattern formed
between utterances and activities given in stage directions within
subframes is duplicated by the pattern formed by the subframes
themselves. That is, the pattern which is characteristic of Eddie and
May's individual utterances is characteristic as well of the larger
activities (frames) which are made up of those utterances. In this
way utterances may be seen as parts of larger units, or frames, and
frames--activities--as units of conversational interaction. Frames
themselves can even be subframes when incorporated into larger
units, the designation frame or subframe indicating merely a
difference in degree, not in kind.
The
activities
QUARRELING may
is
subsumed under
(subframes)
of
PLACATING
also be seen to be parts of a larger unit
the larger activity (frame) of
and
which
VACILLATING.
As shown in Figure 2, Eddie and May never seem to be able to

make up their minds as to whether they will stay together or split up.
In Al (11. 15-16), Eddie assures May he will never leave. In B2 (11.
54), Eddie walks out. In Al (11. 17-18), May holds tight to Eddie.
In Bl (11. 39), she accuses him of infidelity, in B2 (11. 53), she tells
him she doesn't need his solicitation, and in B2 (11. 56), she begs
him not to leave.
Of course, the activity or frame of
VACILLATING need not necessarily consist of the two activities or

subframes of PLACATING and QUARRELING. People can
any decision, and the possible activities which can
a vacillating relationship are almost endless. In the play,
Shepard chooses to show the particular relationship between Eddie
vacillate about
make up
and May as one in which both characters hesitate and vacillate about
whether they will stay together or part. The topics of their
conversations are particular to their own lives; their activities are a
result of their life situation. Their inability to decide whether to stay
together or split up in effect defines their relationship.
Example 1, then, illustrates that coherence may be present
despite seeming discontinuity, in accordance with Linde's
fundamental notion of "discontinuity as continuity."
The
conversational interaction in Example 1 shows that, first, utterances
within a subframe, though they form discontinuous sets, achieve
continuity because they are related to specific topics. Second,
topics, although superficially discontinuous, achieve an underlying
continuity because they are related to a specific activity which the
speakers engage in. Third, activities the speakers are engaged in
(frames), although discontinuous, achieve continuity because they
are related to a central activity involving all the characters (here
Eddie and May). Thus, in Example 1, apparently discontinuous

elements e.g., Eddie's trying to placate May, May's partial
submission and sudden lashing out at Eddie, May's accusing Eddie
of infidelity and his trying to change the topic, May's refusal to
allow herself to be soothed and her telling Eddie to go, Eddie's
threatening to go and May's begging him to stay, Eddie's slamming
of the door and May's pleas of "Don't go"-present the reader with
the first manifestation of the frame VACILLATING, which
subsumes and, ultimately, unites the discontinuities found in the
play.
The utterances, topics, and subframes may seem
discontinuous, but they are not necessarily incoherent. If vacillating
implies irresolute action, that irresolution is evident in the shifts not
only in utterances and topics but also in frames. As Linde indicates,
coherence is not a property of the details of a story, but rather an
achievement of the artist in the construction of his story.
Although QUARRELING and PLACATING are the chief
activities Eddie and May engage in, the two characters have some
brief nonconflictive, even tender moments. But even when they do,
one can discern the VACILLATING which characterizes the central
activity of the play. This is evident in Example 2, in which the
instability of Eddie and May's relationship is reflected even in a
frame involving LOVEMAKING. Lovemaking may be defined as
actions involving wooing or courting in order to seek favor or
affection, and may be seen to differ from placating in terms of
motive (the former seeks primarily to gain affection, the latter
primarily to quiet or calm) and in terms of cause (placating presumes
a grievance, lovemaking does not).
Example 2, like Example 1, demonstrates how
discontinuous sets of utterances can form coherent wholes as
subframes and how discontinuous subframes can form coherent

wholes as parts of larger frames. The overall frame in Example 2 is
VACILLATING; the subframes are QUARRELING and
LOVEMAKING.
Example
2:
VACILLATING
May:
You know how many miles I went

my way just to come here and see
you? You got any idea?
Nobody asked you to come.
Eddie:
Two thousand,
Eddie:
outa'
May:
four hundred and eighty.

Yeah? Where were you, Katmandu or
Eddie:
Two thousand,
something?
four hundred and eighty
64 Ramanathan
miles.
10
May:
So what!
more than anything I ever missed in my
whole life. I kept thinkin' about you
the whole time I was driving. Kept
seeing you. Sometimes just a part of
you.
Which part?
Your neck.
My neck?
Eddie:
Yeah.
20
May:
You missed my neck?
Eddie:
May:
May:
Eddie:
missed
all
of
you but your neck
kept coming up for some reason.
kept crying about your neck.
May:
Eddie:
Crying?
[.
Yeah. Weeping. Like a
.]
little
baby. Uncontrollable. It would just
up and stop and then start up

over again. For miles. I couldn't
start
all
stop
it.
Cars would pass
road. People
C2
May:
face
was
stop
my
Was this
all
would
me on
stare at
twisted up.
me.
the
30
My
couldn't
face.
before or after your
little
Eddie:
with the Countess?

[.
.] There wasn't any fling with any
Countess!
May:
You're a
fling
.
liar.
(Shepard, 1984, pp. 23-24)
QUARRELING subframe (CI),

LOVEMAKING subframe (Dl), and lines 34-38 a
QUARRELING (C2). An examination of Example 2
Lines 1-10 represent the

lines 11-33 the
return to
reveals that the utterances of Eddie and May are more continuous
subframe (11. 11-33) than those which
within the
occur at the start of subframe C2 (11. 34-35). All the utterances
within subframe Dl (11. 11-33) seem logically relevant to each other
and to the three topics in this subframe: Eddie's missing of
May, May's neck, and Eddie's crying. These topics are
LOVEMAKING
indicated by the repetition of key words: "missed" is repeated 5

times in 9 moves, "neck" is repeated 5 times, and "crying"
("weeping," "it") is repeated 5 times. Crying, introduced as a topic
with neck in lines 24 and 25, becomes the topic for the rest of the
subframe
(11.
25-33).
These moments of LOVEMAKING, however, are brief, and

soon give way to further QUARRELING. This abrupt shift of
subframes, from LOVEMAKING to QUARRELING, occurs at
lines 33-35. May's response to Eddie's attempts to tell May how
much he missed her also represents a sudden shift in topics from
Eddie's missing of May to Eddie's infidelity. May's
response ("Was this before or after your little fling with the
Countess?", 11. 34-35) is discontinuous to Eddie's previous
utterance ("My face was all twisted up. I couldn't stop my face," 11.
31-33). The topic in subframe C2 is thus fling with Countess,
and, as can be seen, is a resumption of the earlier quarrel about
Eddie's infidelity.
Coherence, more apparent in subframe Dl
(LOVEMAKING) than in the subframes subsumed under Example
The
1, is a result of continuity or relevance between utterances.
topicsEddie's missing of May and May's neck-are related
as Eddie tells May that at times he missed "just a part" of her (11.
11-16), and when to her question "Which part?" (1. 17) he answers
"Your neck" (1. 18). The topics-May's neck and Eddie's

crying-are related as Eddie tells May that he couldn't stop crying
about her neck (1. 24).
But no such continuity or relevance connects the subframes
CI, Dl, and C2; yet, they can be seen to form a coherent whole
under the overall frame of VACILLATING. Coherence in Example
2 thus results from the organization of discontinuous elements into
the pattern of approach-avoidance or attraction-rejection, which was
similarly seen in
LOVEMAKING
VACILLATING
Example 1. Here, as
and returns to
QUARRELING leads to
QUARRELING, the
pattern so characteristic of Eddie and May's

unstructured relationship provides one with a coherent view of the
central activity which will engage all the characters of the play.
As in Example 1, the pattern formed by discontinuous sets
of utterances within the individual speech exchanges in Example 2 is
representative of and mirrored by the pattern formed by
discontinuous activities or subframes. This pattern formed by the
conversational interaction in Example 2 may be represented by
Figure 3.
66 Ramanathan
Figure 3
Example
2:
OVERALL FRAME: VACILLATING

SUBFRAMES
.
Within Subframes
Between Subframes
C1=QUARRELING--Eddie's
Avoidance
staying or going
Approach-Eddie:
You know how

miles
went outa'
my way just to
you?
'
Rejection-May:
Dl=LOVEMAKING
see
1-3)
Nobody asked you

to
Approach
(11.
come.
(1.
4)
May,
May's neck, Eddie's
-Eddie's missing of
crying
Approach-May:
Approach-Eddie:
You missed my
neck? (1.21)
I missed all of you
but your neck kept
coming up for
some reason. I
kept crying about
Approach-May:
C2=QUARRELING
Avoidance
your neck.
(11. 22-24)
Crying? (1. 25)
-Eddie's infidelity
Approach-Eddie:
couldn't stop
[crying].
(11.
Rejection-May:
32-33)
Was
this
before
or after your
flint
little
with the
countess?
(11.
Figure
shows the
3, a
pattern
34-35)
VACILLATING
frame like that in Example 1

formed by utterances within subframes, the
relationship of those utterances to each other and to the topic of the
subframe, and the pattern formed between the subframes

Within subframe CI (QUARRELING), Eddie's
themselves.
utterance "You know how many miles I went outa' my way just to
see you?" (11. 1-3), an attempt to approach May, is met with her
rejection ("Nobody asked you to come," 1. 4). This is the same
pattern of approach-avoidance evidenced in QUARRELING frame
Bl in Example 1. In Subframe CI of Example 2, Eddie and May
can be seen to be quarreling about the topic of Eddie's staying or
going, and the subframe (as in Example 1) takes its name from the
overt verbal conflict between Eddie and May.
Within subframe Dl (LOVEMAKING), May's utterance
"You missed my neck?" (1. 21), Eddie's response ("I missed all of
you but your neck kept coming up for some reason. I kept crying
about your neck?" 11. 21-24), and May's response ("Crying?" 1. 25),
indicate the characters' attempts to be close to one another. The
pattern here is the same as the pattern which occurred in the
PLACATING subframe Al in Example 1 -approach-approach. In
Example 2, however, the subframe takes its name from the mutual
activity of LOVEMAKING, in which the topics are Eddie's
missing of May, May's neck, and Eddie's crying.
Within subframe C2 (QUARRELING), Eddie's utterance ("I
couldn't stop [crying]," 11. 29-30) represents an approach towards
May. Her response ("Was this before or after your little fling with
the countess?" 11. 34-35), however, is a rejection of Eddie. Hence,
the utterances in this subframe, like the utterances in CI of Example
2 and Bl of Example 1, form a pattern of approach-avoidance. This
subframe also takes its name from the overt verbal conflict apparent
in the conversational interaction between Eddie and May, whose
Eddie's infidelity.
should be noted that in Example 2, while the utterances
within subframe Dl (LOVEMAKING) are continuous with each
other, the utterances within subframes CI and C2 (QUARRELING)
form discontinuous sets. One might conclude that the reason for the
topic
is
It
discontinuity lies in the activity of QUARRELING itself; that when

an utterance indicating approach is met by a rejecting utterance,
discontinuity results. As a corollary, one may reason that when an

utterance indicating approach is met by acceptance, continuity will
result. However, the discontinuous sets of utterances in CI and C2
can be seen to form a unified whole as a subframe or activity of
QUARRELING, just as the continuous sets of utterances in Dl
form a unified whole as a subframe or activity of LOVEMAKING.

In this way, discontinuous elements can be made to form a
68 Ramanathan
continuity.
The subframes themselves reflect the same pattern of

CI
approach-avoidance as CI moves into Dl then to C2.
Dl
avoidance,
(QUARRELING) is an activity characterized by
an activity characterized by approach, C2
activity characterized by avoidance. The
overall pattern, thus, may be seen as avoidance-approach-avoidance.
These discontinuous elements, like the discontinuous elements
within the subframes CI and C2, can be seen to form a coherent
whole under the general frame or activity VACILLATING. Again,
this pattern shows how discontinuous elements can, by careful
arrangement, be made to form a continuity which, in each case,
reveals itself as a frame or subframe of activities the characters are
(LOVEMAKING) is
(QUARRELING) an
engaged
in.
should be pointed out that the VACILLATING in

activities or subframes of QUARRELING
and LOVEMAKING, rather than the activities or subframes of
Finally,
this
it
frame consists of the
and PLACATING as in Example 1. People can

any decision, and while the form the vacillation takes
QUARRELING
vacillate about
an irresolute movement, the activities

can encompass a wide range of
possibilities. In Example 1, Eddie and May cannot decide whether
to stay together or part. In Example 2, they cannot decide whether
will
always exhibit
which compose
itself as
that indecision
to fight or make love. In either case,

define their relationship.
it is
vacillation
which seems
to
Structured Relationships in Multi-Speaker Frames
Love has so far focused on frames

around two speakers sharing an unstructured
relationship. Furthermore, the analysis has looked at frames in two
ways: by examining the relationship between subframes and
frames, and by looking at the smaller elements within frames (e.g.,
speech exchanges, continuous and discontinuous utterances, topics,
and the ways topics are determined). In contrast, what follows is an
analysis of a frame built around two speakers who share a structured
relationship: that between Eddie and Martin, May's supposed new
The
analysis of Fool for
and subframes
built
lover.
Before Martin actually appears, he is alluded to in a frame in

which Eddie and May once again are QUARRELING about whether
Eddie will stay or leave. This frame, represented by Example 3,
shows Eddie as jealous and threatening:
Example
3:
QUARRELING
Eddie:
{standing slowly)
May:
May:
You better.
Why?
You just better.
Eddie:
I'll
go.
me
Eddie:
thought you wanted
May:
got
Eddie:
(short pause,
May:
Yeah, here. Where else?

(makes a move toward her upstage)
been seeing somebody!
Eddie:
May:
somebody coming
on
his feet)
to stay.
to get
me.
Here?
You
Eddie:
May:
think about
it.
Eddie:
How
long have you been seeing him!
May:
What
difference does
(Short pause.
May:
10
moves quickly downleft, crosses

right) When was the last time we
were together, Eddie? Huh? Can you
remember that far back?
Who've you been seeing?
(He moves violently toward her.)
Don't you touch me! Don't you even
(she
it
20
make!
He stares at her,
then turns
suddenly and exits out the stage-left door

and slams it behind him. Door booms.)
Eddie! Where are you going? Eddie!
(Shepard, 1984, p. 28)
The
activity of the
whole passage
is
QUARRELING. From
In line 6, the topic changes to

somebody (the reason May now wants Eddie to leave), and then
quickly to seeing somebody (the reason for Eddie's jealousy). In
lines 1-5, the topic is go/stay.
word "somebody" ("who," "him") is repeated 4

times in 9 moves, the word "seeing" 3 times. This frame and the
topic go/stay are concluded by Eddie's exit and May's utterance in
line 24. After this sequence, Eddie continues acting like a jealous
lover until the appearance of Martin (Shepard, p. 41), a behavior
pattern which prepares the reader for a meeting between antagonists.
Indeed it is this hostility between the jealous lover and the "new
guy" which is part of the structured nature of a relationship, and the
boundaries and conditions imposed by that hostility would tend to
rule out attempts at understanding, friendliness, humor,
compassion, or familiarity. Any utterance which tries to bridge the
gap between the two speakers in such a relationship may thus be
lines 6-19, the
70 Ramanathan
considered a crossing of the line drawn between two opponents, a

line perceivable both to the involved participants as well as an
outsider.
The meeting scene, however, runs counter to such

expectations insofar as it explicitly (and comically) violates the
boundaries of Eddie and Martin's relationship. Instead of the
expected face-to-face encounter, the two men meet as Martin crashes
through the door and stands over Eddie, ready to slug him. That
they carry on a conversation for several lines with Eddie lying on the
floor underscores the structured nature of their relationship even as it
undermines
it.
all the activities involving Eddie and Martin, the

around the activity of INFORMING is most important,
not only in establishing coherence in the interactions of Eddie and
Martin, but also in establishing the overall coherence of the play.
Informing can be defined as imparting knowledge of a fact or
circumstance and can be seen in Eddie's imparting certain facts
about his relationship with May to Martin. In the following frame,
represented by Example 4, Eddie and Martin (with the Old Man as a
non-participant observer) provide information to each other but also
inform the reader about Eddie and May's relationship. As the frame
begins, Eddie pours Martin a drink, and they begin to talk about
May:
Yet, of
frame
built
le4:
INFORMING
Martin:
Eddie:
Oh. So-you knew each other even

before high school then, huh?
No, see, I never even knew I had a
sister until
it
was too
20
late.
Martin:
How do you mean?
Eddie:
Well, by the time I found out we'd

already-you know-fooled around.
(The Old Man shakes his head, drinks. Long

Eddie:
pause. Martin just stares at Eddie.)

(grins) Whatsa' matter, Martin?
Martin:
You
Eddie:
Martin:
Yeah.
Well-um-that's
Eddie:
30
fooled around?
suppose
illegal, isn't it?
so.
(to Eddie) Who is this guy?

The Old Man:
Martin:
I mean-is that true? She's really
Eddie:
your
sister?
Half.
Only
37
half.
(Shepard, 1984, pp. 47-48)
In this example, the topic of the frame, the relationship

between Eddie and May, is established not through the
key words, but through a series of questions in which

Martin seeks to confirm the truth of what he has heard. Martin's
"checking up" on the information is apparent in line 13 ("You're-her husband?"); in line 18 ("Your sister?"); in lines 20-21 ("Oh--so
you knew each other even before high school then, huh?"); in line
30 ("You fooled around?"); and in lines 35-36 ("I mean-is that true?
She's really your sister?").
This series of questions asked by Martin serves two
functions. First, because he gets answers, his questions provide
continuity between utterances. Second, by violating the boundaries
or expectations of his and Eddie's relationship, the questions
repetition of
underscore its structured nature. The questions are rather personal,

suggesting an interest not entirely proper between antagonists. For
example, Martin's response to Eddie's utterance that he and May
"go back quite a ways, see..." (11. 7-8) is "Oh. I didn't know that"
(1. 9), an utterance which could indicate a distanced reserve neither
friendly nor unfriendly. But his subsequent questions, "And you're
not really cousins?" (1. 11), "You're-her husband?" (1. 13), "Your
sister?" (1. 18), "Oh. So-you knew each other even before high
school then, huh?" (11. 20-21), "You fooled around?" (1. 30), "I
mean-is that true? She's really your sister?" (11. 35-36), belie a
growing interest in the events as Eddie tells them, which seems to
72 Ramanathan
override antagonism.
But Eddie himself has offered revelations of a personal

nature in a kidding, humorous way and so he, too, has violated the
boundaries or expectations of an antagonistic relationship. For
example, Eddie's utterances- that he and May have between them a
"Lotta' miles" (1. 10); that before he found out that May was his
sister they had "already-you know-fooled around" (11. 25-26); his
question, "Whatsa' matter, Martin?" (1. 29), delivered as he "grins";
his off-hand reply of "I suppose so" (1. 33) to Martin's naive
question, "Well-um-that's illegal, isn't it?" (1. 32)-seem to
indicate an ease and familiarity not wholly expected between
antagonists
By revealing unexpected familiarity, friendliness, ease,
humor, and personal interest, Eddie's and Martin's utterances thus
violate yet at the same time underscore the structured nature of their
relationship. The pattern formed by the conversational interaction in
Example 4 may be represented by Figure 4, an INFORMING frame
which reveals a different pattern from those seen in Examples 1-3.
The explanation for this difference is that the frame represented by
Example 4 has, within the play itself, a function different from those
of the frames and subframes represented by Examples 1-3. The
earlier examples established patterns of attraction-rejection or
approach-avoidance which are characteristic of two characters
continually vacillating about whether they want to stay together or
part, or whether they want to fight or make love. The function of
the frames and subframes in Examples 1-3 was to render the
characters in action. The function of the frame represented by
Example 4, however, is to provide information. In literary terms
such a frame would be called "expository." Since its function is to
provide information, the frame takes shape as a series of questions
and answers. Questions and answers are not the only way to
provide information, but since they are appropriate between
speakers in a structured relationship, they provide a convenient
frame for Martin and Eddie.
Within this overall frame of INFORMING, the utterances of
Eddie and Martin are paired. As can be seen in Figure 4, every
question elicits an immediate answer. Yet all these questions and
answers are related to the larger topic of the frame, the
relationship between Eddie and May. While the frame takes
its
name from
its
characteristic activity,
INFORMING, it in part also

VACILLATING.
explains the reason for Eddie and May's constant
Figure 4
Explanation for
Example
4:
VACILLATING
OVERALL FRAME: INFORMING

I
Martin:
You're--her husband?
(1.
'-Eddie:
13)
No. She's
my
half sister.
(11.
Martin:
Your
Eddie:
Yeah.
r- Martin:
sister?
(1.
(1.
sister...
My
14-16)
18)
19)
Oh. So-you knew each

other even before high
school then, huh?

(11.20-21)
-Eddie:
No,
it
I never even
had a sister until
see,
knew
was too
later
(11.
22-23)
The relationship
between Eddie and
May
Martin:
You
(1.
L-Eddie:
r-
Martin:
fooled around?
30)
Yeah. (1.31)
I
mean-is
that true?
She's really your sister?

(11.35-36)
L Eddie:
Half.
Only
half.
(1.
37)
Indeed, by revealing for the first time the incestuous nature

of the relationship between Eddie and May, this INFORMING
frame gives the first indication of why Eddie and May, so drawn to
each other, might be reluctant to stay together. The pattern of
attraction-rejection or approach-avoidance which characterized the
earlier utterances and activities of Eddie and May can now be seen in
a larger context, partially explaining .the ambiguous, vacillating
nature of their relationship. From this point of view, one can
understand how this frame-INFORMING-fits into the overall
frame of VACILLATING. Functioning as an explanation of why
Eddie and May vacillate, it sheds light on the earlier frames and
74 Ramanathan
subframes represented
in
Examples
1-3.
By way
of summary, the analysis of Examples 1-4, which

focused on multi-speaker frames in Shepard's Fool for Love, has
shown that patterns formed by the speakers' utterances in both
structured and unstructured relationships reveal that seemingly
discontinuous utterances really form continuous wholes which can
be classified as frames or subframes, in accordance with Linde's
model of discontinuity as continuity. Moreover, these frames or
subframes, which take their names from the characteristic activity of
the speakers, themselves form patterns mirroring and repeating the
patterns formed by individual utterances within the frames. Finally,
the analysis has posited that subframes and frames are essentially the
same kind of wholes, consisting of conversational interaction which
differs only in degree but not in kind.
CONCLUSION
One of the main goals of this study was to determine
whether continuity within a speech exchange or between speech
exchanges ensured coherence within a frame, and whether
continuity between frames ensured overall text coherence. It was
shown that coherence in speech exchanges, as they occur in Sam
Shepard's Fool for Love, does not depend on the continuity of
utterances but rather on the arrangement of utterances; it was shown
that coherence may result when even discontinuous utterances are
organized into a pattern which the reader can perceive as a unified
whole. On a larger scale, it was argued that discontinuous frames
could be arranged into a pattern which could be perceived as
coherent by a reader; it was also argued that overall text coherence
depends not upon continuity between frames but rather on the
arrangement of discontinuous or continuous frames into a coherent
whole.
The approach adopted in this study was felt to be necessary
because it deals with issues usually ignored in more traditional types
of literary criticism, which often overlooks the sociological aspects
of a text by limiting the study of unity and coherence in language to
an analysis of unifying themes or images. The present study differs
since it attempts to show how speakers' utterances are governed and
shaped by their relationships and the activities in which they are
engaged. This study can also be seen to contribute to text analysis
because it attempts to establish that overall coherence (of a text) can

be established if the text is broken up into the largest, most clearly
defined units of discourse as possible. Coherence, then, even in a
fictional play with apparent discontinuities, can, in light of Linde's
theory, be established by relating the language used by speakers to
the pragmatic circumstances of their lives.
NOTES
1
Lundquist (1985), for instance, seeks to establish coherence by closely
examining semantic roles within a sentence, in terms of agent, time, and location.
While such an approach focusing on subsentential elements may be sufficient to
establish "connexity" within a sentence, the drawback is that a holistic view of the
Giora (1985) proposes a model of coherence based on linear
text is ignored.
She argues that coherence between sentences depends on "discourse
cohesion.
She does not, however, specify what exactly constitutes or
Topics" (DTs).
determines a DT. This same criticism can be applied to Tannen (1984) as well who
defines coherence as the "underlying organizing structure making the words and
sentences into a unified discourse" (p. xiv) but does not specify how one organizes
words and sentences to form a "unified discourse." Linde's definition (1987), in
contrast, is more explicit and comprehensive.
2
In this and all other passages quoted for analysis, topics will be identified
boldface
type, stage directions will be indicated by italics, and frames and
by
subframes will be identified by CAPITAL LETTERS. Stage directions not crucial to the
analysis are omitted and indicated by [.
.].
.
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J.
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to
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Burton, D. (1980). Dialogue and discourse. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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M.A.K.
Halliday,
(Ed.),
Halliday,
(1970).
New
Language
structure
horizons in linguistics.
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Lyons
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Explanatory systems in oral life stories. In D. Holland & N.
Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp. 343-366).
Linde, C.
M.A.K.
(1987).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Coherence: From structures to processes. Papers in
Lundquist, L.
(1985).
Textlinguistics, 49, 151-175.
Minsky, M. (1980). a framework for representing knowledge. In D. Metzing (Ed.),
Frame conceptions and text understanding (pp. 1-25). New York: Walter de
Gruyter.
Noguchi, R.
(1984).
Talking and meaning
in dialogue.
Journal of Literary
76 Ramanathan
Semantics, 13, 109-124.

Shepard, S. (1984). 'Fool for love' and other plays. New York: Bantam.
Tannen, D. (1979). What's in a frame? Surface evidence for underlying expectations.
In R. Freedle (Ed.),
New
directions in discourse processing (pp. 137-181).
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Tannen, D. (1982). Oral and literate strategies in spoken and written discourse.
Language, 58, 1-23.
Tannen, D. (1984). Introduction. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Coherence in spoken and
written discourse (pp. xiii-xvii). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Tannen, D.
Repetition in conversation:
(1987).
Toward a poetics of talk.
Language, 63, 574-605.
Thome, J.P. (1965). Stylistics and generative grammars. Journal of Linguistics, 1,
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Vaidehi Ramanathan is a doctoral student in Applied Linguistics at the

University of Southern California. She holds an
in Literature from the
University of Baroda, India, and an
in Linguistics from California State
MA
MA
University, Northridge.
Her current research
interest is in
afflicted with Alzheimer's disease narrativize experience.
how
elderly people
SPECIAL FEATURE ROUNDTABLE

INTRODUCTION
Language education and language acquisition have been
among
the core areas of applied linguistics in the brief history of our
In this Special Feature, coordinated by David Leech, four

applied linguistics practitioners who have participated in the
Applied Linguistics
community of UCLA's Department of TESL
were invited to share their perspectives. Three of the four
contributors, John Povey, Brian Lynch, and John Schumann, are
presently faculty members in the department. The fourth, Leo van
Lier, of the Monterey Institute for International Studies, recently
Applied Linguistics
visited UCLA as a guest speaker in the TESL
Graduate Students' Spring 1991 Speaker Series.
Each writer contributes an in-depth personal perspective on
his particular work, discussing its relationship to applied linguistics
and to contributing areas of inquiry. Van Lier, Povey, and Lynch
have chosen to express their thoughts in essay form, while
Schumann preferred to respond to David Leech's questions in an
field.
&
&
interview format.
The
first
three contributions are
from applied
linguists in
language education. Leo van Lier offers provocative insights into

what an active applied linguistics might be and into what sort of
relationship would result for theory, research, and practice. John
Povey reviews the status of language education within applied
linguistics, especially the recent re-emergence of literature as a
culturally rich vehicle for English language teaching in a culturally
diverse world. Brian Lynch argues that his "context-adaptive model
of program evaluation" has much to offer not only to educational
contexts in the widest sense, but also to improved measurement of
language abilities. The interview with John Schumann follows
these essays.
ISSN 1050-4273
Vol.2 No.
1991 77-94
78 Special Feature Roundtable
Doing Applied Linguistics:

Towards a Theory of Practice
Leo van
Monterey Institute of International Studies
Lier,
A central
task for the applied linguist
in relation to the three
dominant-view of
is
to articulate
terms theory, research, and practice.
a principled stance
A prominent~if not
this relationship is that research is primarily related to theory
(whether in a theory-first or in a research-first sense) rather than to practice. To

illustrate this view of research in our field, let me quote the opening lines of a
paper by Kevin Gregg (1989)
The
ultimate goal of second language acquisition research
is
the development of a theory of second language acquisition.
exists;
widespread agreement that no such theory

beyond that rather minimal point, the consensus starts
think there
is fairly
to dissolve, (p. 15)
This quotation squarely places research

(tacitly)
we
all
assumes
that there
agree with this?
which addresses
for one,
I,
in the service
of theory and furthermore
can surely be no disagreement on
am
practical concerns
inclined to disagree.
is at
this point.
But do
think that research
least as valuable as theory-oriented
research and, indeed, that practice-oriented or practice-driven research in general
more enduring theoretical benefit than research which is divorced

from practice.
Such research is also more likely to be funded and to be
appreciated by the public. The perspective of Gregg's statement would lead us in
other fields, perhaps, to statements such as "The ultimate goal of AIDS research
is the development of a theory of AIDS," rather than the understanding of the
disease and its prevention.
Moreover, Gregg's paper appears in a series entitled "Applied
Linguistics," published by Cambridge University Press. The professed aim of
this series is to publish work which succeeds in "relating research and practice"
(Series Preface, p. viii). Is the "second language acquisition research" (SLA)
mentioned by Gregg something different from applied linguistics (AL)? Are
tends to be of
SLA
those
researchers perhaps those
who
who
look towards practice?
label to the
AL
label?
look towards theory, while
Is that
would be
why some
AL
researchers
researchers prefer the
loath (or reckless) to speculate
SLA
on these
I will quote Newmeyer & Weinberger (1988), who call second

language learning (SLL) an "immature discipline." Among the reasons they
give for this temporary (one hopes) imperfection are the "ties with pedagogy"
which have not yet been "completely severed" (pp. 34-45). In other words, the
less SLA (or SLL) gets involved with pedagogy, the closer it gets to "maturity."
This I find curious indeed. It is as if a medical researcher were to say that we can
only achieve a mature theory of digestion if we ignore all reference to diet,
chewing, and exercise. Further, giving advice to people about how to avoid
matters, so
Language Education Language Acquisition

,
79
stomach ulcers or developing useful drugs would then be immature acts of the
researcher.
I
want
to
make
it
clear that
accept the validity of theory-oriented,
practice-eschewing types of research such as appears to be advocated by Gregg,

Newmeyer, Weinberger, and many others who prefer to leave the qualifier applied
out of their particular titular compound. Certainly, there is no reason why a

researcher should immediately have to prove the practical applicability of every
piece of research s/he does. However, it troubles me when researchers claim,
tacitly if not overtly, some sort of exclusivity or primacy for their own brand of
research and theory-making. On the one hand, a deliberate dissociation of
SLA/SLL from pedagogy appears somewhat quixotic given that the words
learning and acquisition appear in these researchers'
hand, such separation would
make
own
labels.
On
the other
and the practitioner

atheoretical, or at best turn the teacher into a passive (perhaps awestruck?)
recipient of research and theoretical findings. I suggest that a dislocation of
either type would signal severe immaturity rather than the converse.
I have so far questioned two assumptions: (a) that research should have
theory-construction as its ultimate or exclusive goal and (b) that theory and
research should be kept separate from pedagogical practice. To complete my
activist's agenda, I must now add a third questionable assumption. This is the
assumption, stated forcefully on at least two occasions by Jarvis (1981, 1991),
that research and teaching are two entirely distinct activities which cannot be
combined (except in collaborative research in which teacher and researcher join
the theorist unpractical
forces, each contributing his or her
own
expertise). Jarvis (1991) argues that,
whereas research is designed "to solve a problem-to come to understand," the

purpose of a teacher's research, or action research, is "to solve a problem-to
make something work" (p. 302).
3
Like all scientific activity, action research involves problem solving,
it is much more than that: it includes systematic cycles of planning, acting,
observing, reflecting, and documentation (Lewin, 1946; Nixon, 1981; Carr
Kemmis, 1986). If it is well done, and successful, it leads to a better
but
&
understanding of a particular aspect of reality, in our case an aspect of teaching

and learning. In such cases it is good educational research. Contrary to Jarvis's
claim that research should be left to professionally trained researchers, there is

evidence that teachers can be researchers, that they can do useful research in
cooperation with other teachers, with or without assistance from academically
trained researchers, and that such research is a legitimate and beneficial activity
for teachers (see a recent issue of Educational Leadership on the theme of
"reflective teaching" (The Reflective Educator, 1991). In actual fact, teachers can
be (and are being) taught how to do various kinds of research in in-service
workshops and postgraduate degree programs (Nunan, 1990).
The teacher who is excluded from research except in the role of
collaborator, as Jarvis suggests, is a restricted professional, whereas the reflective
teacher or teacher-researcher is an extended and autonomous professional
(Stenhouse, 1975). According to Stenhouse, the extended professional has "a

capacity for autonomous professional self-development through systematic self-

study, through the study of the
work of other teachers and through
ideas by classroom research procedures" (1975, p.

professional, being autonomous, will engage in research
the testing of
The extended
144).
when
s/he sees
fit
to
do
academe's approval or permission. And when

theorists and researchers prefer to distance themselves from practical involvement
in pedagogical affairs, teachers have no choice but to do their own research in
so, without necessarily waiting for
order to investigate their
My
own
practice (or praxis, to use the Aristotelian term).
advice to teachers therefore
is
to
grow some theory of their own,

when and where appropriate.
to take
research initiatives, and to seek expertise
An
a)
activist applied linguistics
aims to establish the following points:
Research can be practice-based (practice-driven and/or practice-oriented).
Such research reduces the gap between theory and

watering
down
b) Practice-based research
least to the
interesting,
d)
It is
and
its
feasible
own
their
some
is
same degree
at
theoretically interesting
(i.e.,
valuable) at
that theory-based research is practically
times perhaps more so.
c) It is possible, desirable,
to establish
practice, without
theory or encumbering practice.
own
and even necessary for the teaching profession
theory of practice.
and necessary
for
autonomous teachers
to
be researchers of
reality.
work
(e.g., van Lier, 1991), I have illustrated a type of

which can best be called educational linguistics. 4
While teaching a regular semester-long ESL class, I conducted research on my
own teaching (action research). I had several purposes in mind, some more
explicitly articulated than others. As it happened, things turned out rather
differently than expected, but this is not uncommon in any kind of research.
Some of the goals and procedures of this project, stated as succinctly as possible,
In
recent
activist applied linguistics
were:
a)
Try
how an
on form/language (or consciousnesscommunicative approach. I tried a

number of different tasks, traditional and innovative, to see how
language awareness might be brought about or harnessed in the service
to see
explicit focus
raising) can be incorporated in a
of language learning.
b) Establish an authentic data-base for
more
in
making graduate
linguistics courses
tune with the reality of language use in classrooms.
To
this
end I recorded all my ESL lessons and planned to transcribe excerpts for
immediate use in the graduate classes I was simultaneously teaching.
c) Find out if and how action research really works by doing it myself. I
kept a diary, invited others to observe my lessons, transcribed all
lessons (with the help of Eve Connell and Sheila Williams, then
graduate students), and tried to monitor as closely as possible what
happened.
Language Education Language Acquisition 81

,
d) Establish the relevance of as
many
theoretical issues as possible,
from
the perspective of a language teacher. That is, standing in the

classroom, I asked myself what I could honestly say was important for
my
my
work,
my
professional self-improvement, and
students. This question led
me
which I might otherwise have continued

yet which I now regard as crucial.
Practice-based research
is
my
understanding of
to investigate educational issues

to neglect or
be ignorant
of,
open-ended and ongoing: one cannot expect
closure similar to carefully planned and circumscribed experimental projects.

However, while it may not fit the preferred formats of many theorists, there is
no doubt that it has powerful theoretical potential as well as immediate practical
value. Furthermore, it is gaining increasing respectability and prominence in the
philosophy of science and the social sciences, and the linguistic and SLA
research community will inevitably have to come to terms with it.
Applied Linguistics and the Place of Literature

Language Teaching
John Povey,
in
UCLA
When we became a department it seemed no one much liked our double

name--"Department of TESL & Applied Linguistics"--but it was indicative that
no one could suggest any more specific appellation. So it is with the field.
What is applied, to what, and why?
Applied linguistics assumes that linguistics itself (housed elsewhere)
pursues 'pure' studies. After that the pragmatists borrow and employ the more
useful bits. Such a system can be seen as analogous to basic research and
manufacturing. For the economic model, made metaphor above, there remains a
third stage, consumerism, which is realistically the sole purpose of the process.
TESL presumably becomes that academic also-ran serving utilitarian
performance in the classroom. The sequence has a sweet logic, but within
academe, it proves to offer a less calculated interaction. Between research and
function, gaps seem to widen rather than narrow, compounded by a common
scholarly attitude that research is the hard work and the foot soldiers can carry the
burden into the classrooms. I think there is presently a tension between scholars
and teachers. That may not matter at the elevated intellectual level but is
damnable at the second language chalk-face. "They cry out and are not fed," as
Milton put it in condemning earlier scholars. Sometimes this is for the best.
Some of the more absurd hypotheses about language teaching have been
mercifully restricted by the surly conservatism of long-experienced teachers to
the great benefit of their students, but such exceptions do not indicate that
researchers should retire from the field and abdicate from the honorable and
essential duty to guide
and sustain those doing daily
battle with intransigent
circumstances.
Applied linguistics implicitly and increasingly borrows from other

mathematics, psychology, sociology, even biology, and 'applies' their
fields:
discoveries to a different intellectual and educational situation.
One always
own
right, but the
senses the danger. These offer a broader legitimacy in their
content becomes
its
own
justification and the major reason for its pursuit. In

commitment, does our second title 'applied linguistics'
title of TESL?--only marginally and distantly. One does not
the context of scholarly
lead toward our
first
wish to return to the old days of basic teacher training; the how-to-hold-the-chalk
and never-turn-your-back-on-the-class type of instruction. Even those of us most
dedicated to education, after giving a passionate lecture on principles, have
winced at that attacking, unanswerable question, "Yes, that's all very interesting
but what do I do on Monday?" I am not sure that in any immediate way an
'applied linguist' can offer useful answers to such pleas, and there lies the
problem. Our aims are long term. Needs are more immediate. We can only
point out the potential effectiveness of our statistical proofs. It may be that
there is an intermediate stage, that of formal teacher-training programs, through
which research needs to be filtered down. Yet I think at a more fundamental
level we may be forgetting purpose and substituting the more pleasurable
experiences of, as Ratty (from The Wind in the Willows) remarked, "messing
about in boats," or at least with our computers, rather than thinking of those
huge, overfilled classes in the Los Angeles school system.
I remember a plenary speech by the late and lamented Peter Strevens.
He took the acronym "TESOL" as his text but insisted that our concerns were
partial. He reprimanded us that we fussed about 'teaching' provoked by a lot of
'SOLs who besiege us. But what, he so eloquently and rhetorically asked about
the E for English?
With that inquiry he beautifully articulated my own
concerns, and his anxiety would be equally justified if we argue that the
principles of applied linguistics can be spread more widely to serve Russian or
Chinese languages, say. The same addiction to theory and indifference to the
living language would most likely apply.
There are two ways of answering Strevens. Firstly the simple
dismissal. Linguistics, applied or otherwise, is too concerned with vital microfundamentals to consider whether the data with which it works has a living
tradition admired by centuries of creativity. One imagines that bacteriologists
peer through their microscopes without considering the glorious active beast
from which their slide samples are drawn. Secondly and more generously, one
might agree and ask for an emphasis on language as opposed to linguistics as
central to the reception by those 'SOLs.' A different perspective to the emphasis
on 'application.'
This issue is particularly significant when one considers English.
Years of British international education, anticipating an admiration of Jane
Austen as evidence of linguistic success, did require the pendulum to be pushed
back. But there is the old proverb which relates the danger of "throwing the
baby out with the bath water." As English becomes increasingly a global
'
Language Education, Language Acquisition 83
We can define what

and attendant comprehension. Interestingly
enough this suggests that the secondary abilities may in many cases prove more
useful, in the business sense, than speech competences. Applied linguistic
research has focused upon the primary skills substantially because it is only at
the most fundamental levels, when variables can be controlled into relative
simplicity, that specific research can be activated. Language acquisition research
can teach us something, but nothing that explains the miracle of how the illeducated Shakespeare learned his ability to offer a phrase such as "the
language, what can best serve
is
its
needed: reading and writing
expansion and sustenance?
skills
multitudinous seas incarnadine turn."

I
am
Where did he 'acquire'

boredom of 'lit.
not pretending that the old
that skill?
crit.'
can solve
ESL
must play a part in redirecting priorities

within the service of ESL teaching and that its incorporation into programs, at
both the training and teaching levels, can be invaluable. Before I am knocked
down with gales of incredulous laughter let me argue for its virtues and point to
its future. I used to be alone in this fanciful belief, but there are changes in the
problems.
do believe
that literature
The TESOL Newsletter has recently offered several articles hinting that
classroom stories are useful. Recent ESL publishers' catalogs are sneaking in
reading materials that look suspiciously like literature. Surely the most exciting
breakthrough, though not specifically for ESL students, is the California statewide decision to create a 'literature-centered' English language curriculum at
air.
several grade levels in the schools.
What this policy recognizes is that literature provides evidence of

language used at its most expressive level. Literature is the conduit of all
national thought and ideals-one does not have to be exceptionally Whorfian to
recognize that phenomenon. Literature is interesting. That is not a word that
can often be applied to language classes. Almost without exception, and unlike
the average American high school graduate, those nonnative speakers know,
respect, and love literature, even hunger for it. Stories are critical in all
societies. They have been told around campfires for a thousand years to teach
and entertain. Stories are everywhere listened to by rapt audiences. When, in a
ESL class, did one last get a rapt audience? Perhaps only when reading a story.
Literature provides thoughts about the human experience. It demands reaction.
It stimulates that most precious of all teacher classroom hopes-responsivenesswhich has never arisen from the conversation-stopping command: 'Let's have a
Of
discussion.'
know
it
is
course,
am
following, and recommending,
my own
path.
only one direction amongst many.
If
had
to
summarize,
would argue
that applied linguistics is at
present not sufficiently 'applied' in the sense of having immediate, obvious and
advantageous
'application.'
In pursuing the topics that derive
from
its
scholarship, the difference between linguistics and applied linguistics
exceptionally different.
complaint
its
own
may be
field
is
In the great context of university scholarship,
unjustified, unfair,
ultimate utility as service to
of
not so
my
and irrelevant. All scholarship can defend

mankind, if not to the common man. I am
no more immune than others to the temptations of trumpet-blowing about one's

enthusiasms. There is always the hope that in research, as in taxation or

aid, success at the upper levels must inevitably 'trickle down' to the
disadvantaged below. However, the result has rarely been proven in any field. I
believe that without a very determined and activist intervention, this may not be
development
so with 'applied linguistics.'
of Program Evaluation
Applied Linguistics Research
The Role
in
Brian K. Lynch,
Applied linguistics research, as
UCLA
see
it,
is
concerned with the
application of knowledge and methods of inquiry from a variety of disciplines to

the range of issues concerning the development and use of language (cf. Jacobs,
1990, p. 156). This is, admittedly, a very broad definition. It does, however,
establish the direction of application-from disciplines such as linguistics,
sociology, and cognitive science to language-related concerns, rather than from
linguistics to other disciplines.
It
also does not limit the application of
knowledge and methods to traditional language concerns, but opens it up to the

emerging social and political aspects of language learning and use.
From this perspective, program evaluation can play an essential role in
the development of applied linguistics as a field of research. I agree with
Cumming (1987) who distinguished second language program evaluation from
other applied linguistic research because of its special ability to "document actual
interrelationships between program policy, rationale, instructional procedures,
learning processes and outcomes, curricular content, and a specific social milieu"
(p. 697).
In order to provide myself
way of approaching
and others with a systematic and principled
work of program evaluation within the context of

have formulated a context-adaptive model (Lynch, 1990).
the
applied linguistics, I
This was not intended as a model in the traditional, positivist sense of the term.
I did not attempt a rigid formulation of a theory to be tested for validity using
experimental research design and appropriate statistical techniques. Rather, as its
name suggests, it is meant to be a flexible, adaptable heuristic, a starting point
for inquiry into language programs, that will constantly reshape and redefine
itself, depending upon the context of the program and the evaluation. It also
provides a framework for discussing the role of program evaluation in applied
linguistics research.
The
first
model focus on the issues of

Because the audience of a program evaluation often lies
steps of the context-adaptive
audience and goals.
outside academic disciplines, the evaluator as researcher
is
forced to consider the
what counts as evidence from different perspectives. The funding agency

may expect numbers as proof of program success. The community being served
by the program may expect a clear description of how the program accomplishes
what it does. Evaluators will have their own requirements for what counts as
issue of

,
evidence. This aspect of program evaluation forces a consideration of different

types of knowledge and knowledge validation.
It is because of the need to deal with the question of what counts as
evidence that the literature on program evaluation has addressed with regularity
the issue of research paradigm. Within the education and psychology literatures
this has become known as the "qualitative-quantitative debate." Unfortunately,
While the qualitative and

and methods (i.e.,
qualitative and quantitative), the real issues are ontological and epistemological:
what can we know, and how do we know what we know? The quantitative
paradigm stems from positivism, which takes an objectivist perspective to this
this
terminology can tend to obscure the issue.
quantitative paradigms are associated with certain types of data
is seen as independent of the mind, an external objective entity

waiting to be discovered through the use of rigorously controlled experimental
question: reality
design and appropriate statistical procedures. The qualitative paradigm is

associated with phenomenology and interpretivism, which take a relativist
perspective: reality is mind-dependent and behavior is socially constructed, with
no externally existing foundation against which to measure or validate our
knowledge claims. Pennycook (1989, 1990) has applied knowledge from a
variety of disciplines and subdisciplines (e.g., critical linguistics, critical
pedagogy, and postmodern philosophy, anthropology, and sociology) to argue

cogently for a critical applied linguistics that acknowledges the historical, social,
and political bases for our research. Essentially, he has made the connection
between the quantitative-qualitative debate and the emergence of postmodernist
thought as a challenge to traditional approaches to inquiry.
In this sense, program evaluation can lead to a clarification of the
epistemological basis for applied linguistic research; it can and should, I believe,
play the role of keeping us honest in our inquiry.
Even
if
the quantitative-
no longer productive as some have suggested (Reichardt &

Cook, 1979; Howe, 1988)--that is, that there is no need to choose between
research paradigms-or if the postmodernist critique of academic inquiry (e.g.,
Pennycook, 1990) remains unconvincing, the consideration of the issues
involved have led to a recognition by some applied linguists of the need to be
open to "different ways of arriving at understanding" (van Lier, 1988, p. 12) in
qualitative debate is
applied linguistic research.
Another step
model, the context inventory, leads

surrounding the program
being evaluated. This step involves a consideration not only of the perspectives
of the program designers, implementers, and students, but also of the larger
issues concerning the social and political basis and motivation for language
in the context-adaptive
to an examination of the social
learning and teaching.
It is
and
political climate
there that issues such as cultural and linguistic
pluralism versus access to a language as a means of socioeconomic advancement
does the relationship between technology and language in

preserving the status quo of dependency on the technology of certain nations
arise (Gaies, 1987), as
(Judd, 1984). In order to document these types of issues most thoroughly,

program evaluation must apply knowledge and methods from other disciplines,
thereby enriching applied linguistics research.

Another important dimension assessed by the context-adaptive model is
and valid measurement. Most program evaluations attempt some
measure of program effect, or success, using language tests of one sort or
another. This has led to a consideration of the difference between norm-referenced
(NR) measurement and criterion-referenced (CR) measurement. NR tests,
designed to compare or rank students, are generally used for proficiency and
placement purposes. CR tests measure students' performance with respect to a
specific set of criteria and are generally used for achievement and diagnostic
purposes. (For a more detailed discussion of the differences between NR and CR
Several evaluations have
tests, see Hudson & Lynch, 1984; Brown, 1989.)
called for more and better CR tests in assessing program success (Whitley, 1987;
Lynch, 1988; Polio, 1988). Such tests are deemed to be "program fair" (Beretta,
1986) in that they are more sensitive to the specific curricular objectives of the
individual programs than are NR tests. Thus, program evaluation can lead to the
application of knowledge and techniques from education and psychology for the
improved measurement of particular language abilities in particular program
reliable
contexts.
The
final steps
of the context-adaptive model, dealing with the design of
a data collection system and the analysis of evaluation data, also lead to the
application of methods, both quantitative and qualitative, from different
methods approach can be seen when data

match between the instructional
objectives and the classroom processes in a language program. In order to
effectively assess this match, program evaluation must pursue ethnographic
accounts of language classrooms and introspective/retrospective investigation of
individual learning processes and their interaction with language instruction. It
must also pursue the measurement of student achievement of the program's
disciplines. In particular, this multiple
are collected and analyzed to investigate the
instructional objectives. To the degree these objectives are operationalizations

derived from language learning theory, the multiple methods approach
encourages the development of better quantitative measures that can also be used
in more traditional, experimental research designed to validate that theory. An
adequate approach to such validation, as Bachman (1990, and personal
communication) has argued, would require the development of CR tests of
language ability. Ultimately, the most convincing validation of theory will
combine these efforts to qualitatively describe the variables involved in
classroom language learning and to quantitatively analyze those variables.
Program evaluation provides a practical base (language programs) and a
motivation (the need for evaluation) for this type of multidisciplinary inquiry in
applied linguistics.

,
Journey Through Language Acquisition
An
Interview with John Schumann,
UCLA
his view of applied linguistics by guiding

us through his own evolution as an applied linguist, a journey which
has brought him from his continuing interest in language acquisition
to the insights of neuroscience and cognitive science.
John Schumann presents
IAL:
What most
interests
you
in
applied linguistics and
how
has that
influenced your development as an applied linguist?
JS:
consider language acquisition and use to be the central concerns of applied

To that central concern we apply insights and knowledge from
linguistics.
Those fields include psychology, sociology, linguistics,

neuroscience, artificial intelligence, anthropology, and to some extent
philosophy. So I really see language acquisition and use as being at the core,
and the "applied" in applied linguistics means applying these various areas to our
various other fields.
studies of language acquisition and use.
my own work,
been mainly concerned with language acquisition,

began with a concern about failure or at least lack
of total success in second language acquisition. That was something that
interested me; I was a language major in college, and I observed variable success
among fellow students. Then I went into the Peace Corps and was in Iran for
several years. And there I observed some people doing better than others and was
curious as to why. In graduate school, I began examining the social psychology
of second language acquisition, particularly the work of Gardner and associates,
Spolsky, and others on attitude and motivation.
Later, looking at the notion of social distance, I examined the work on
ethnic relations and various aspects of social relations between groups and
In
less so with
language use.
I've
It
applied this to the study of second language acquisition. I was also interested
the work of Alexander Guiora on the notion of ego permeability or empathy.
in
I
read a good deal of psychoanalytic literature, and I began to think about it in

relation to second language acquisition. I also looked at the anthropological
literature, particularly work done by such researchers as Larsen and Smalley, two
anthropological linguists on
shock.
phenomena such
as language shock
and culture
spent a lot of time studying a branch of linguistics-pidgin and Creole
studies--to try to describe the language of people
whose
linguistic
forms had
fossilized at a very early stage of development.

More recently I have been dying to incorporate a cognitive component
into this pidginization/acculturation model by studying models from the fields of
cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science, to try to see

how those various models could account for the pidginization one finds in early
second language acquisition and in certain fossilized learners. I have also started
studying neurobiology. My hypothesis was that if there was some sort of

social-psychological force that promotes or inhibits second language learning,
it
must have a neural substrate. So I was curious as to what could be going on in

the brain that would cause people to acculturate better and perhaps learn better, or
That led me to studies of the limbic
system, and particularly of the amygdala (which seems to be that part of the
brain that assesses stimuli for their motivational relevance and emotional
not acculturate well or not learn well.
significance). I thought that learners, whether in a target-language context or in

classrooms, constantly scan the environment to assess both motivational
relevance and emotional significance of incoming stimuli. These appraisals
would lead to emotions; and if those emotions are more generally positive than
negative,
it
likely to result in attention to the stimuli.
is
amygdala appears to play a role

the amygdala evaluates stimuli
in
memory, and
positively,
it
thus
it
In addition, the
seems plausible
that if
will signal various parts of the
brain to prepare the cortex to receive information contained in the stimulus.
This has led me to look

psychology of memory. So memory
attention to.
From my
the neuropsychology and cognitive

something which I will be paying more
perspective, memory is the heart of the cognition
at
is
And the neural mechanisms that make memory possible,

which include affective mechanisms such as the amygdala, make memory and
affect link up very closely.
involved in learning.
IAL: Given
the research stage that you have reached, what relationship does it
your original research question? How much does the stage you have
progressed to match it, and how much does it go beyond it?
have
to
JS: In terms of my own intellectual progression, one could argue that there has
been no progression whatsoever. The interest fossilized, and there has been no
movement
at all. What has happened

success in second language learning:
developed an interest in variable

people do it well and quickly,
why some people do it slowly and accomplish very little, or sometimes nothing
at all. That interest of mine has not changed one bit. It has been the core of my
work. First I looked at some social psychology, then clinical psychology,
pidgin and Creole linguistics, neurobiology, the neuropsychology of memory,
and now I am extending it to the psychology of stimulus appraisal and
is that
why some
neurochemistry.
Looking at my work, one might say, "Gee, Schumann just jumps from
one thing to the next. One time he's talking about pidgins, then he's talking
about clinical psychology, now he's talking about the brain. The guy is clearly
a Gemini and he's intellectually out of control." But I would argue that this is
not the case; the central concern has not changed one whit. I just explore it from
different perspectives.
IAL: Would you say you are now working

"hot" or "in" right
now
in applied linguistics generally, if
happen to be generally
match what is going on
in areas that
for applied linguistics?
Does
one can say that?
it

,
I honestly do not see a major trend for the understanding of neuroanatomy

and neurophysiology in applied linguistics right now. But, I think it would be
worth having such a trend because ultimately it is the brain in interaction with
other brains that leads to the acquisition and use of language. We can examine
JS:
interaction,
we can
study input,
we can
analyze output as
much
as
we
want, but
box that does the acquisition and use. And the box
isn't even that black anymore. In the last ten years there has been enormous
progress in neuroscience, and I think we can begin now to study the brain and
speculate how it might be controlling the exact questions I'm interested in--the
success versus lack of success in second language learning. For example, there
was a recent article in The New York Times about a neuropeptide called oxytocin
that seems to be operable in affiliative behavior. Acculturation has a lot to do
with affiliative behavior, i.e., how one regards the target language group, and
there may be some role for oxytocin in that.
ultimately
is
it
the black
I'm also interested in the neurochemicals that are involved in the brain's
to be operable when people are exposed to
They may set off attention mechanisms which
input to become intake. All these raise possibilities
reward system, because they appear

stimuli they positively value.
may
ultimately allow the
for aspects of the neurosubstrate that
becoming
may
be involved in the process of
bilingual.
I think there are a number of interesting ideas about brain function that
could at the very least give us new metaphors for the way we think about the
problems we have in second language acquisition-for all of the problems are
intractable; nobody has solved anything yet. What we need are as many new
conceptualizations as possible.
is a field of inquiry which is perennially at issue: Chomskyan
and other formal schools which study languages as logical rational
systems. How do you see their work fitting into your own view of applied
IAL: There
linguistics
linguistics?
When
something concerned with language

and second languages. I think the
Chomskyan perspective is a good one if one accepts the notion that there is a
poverty of stimulus-and I think the jury is still out on that. I think some people
accept that axiomatically, they're convinced by the logical arguments for it, but
others aren't convinced. Still it's perfectly all right to ask what language would
look like from the perspective of competence divorced from performance, from
the perspective of a module independent of other modules, and from the
assumption of impoverished input. Whether the generative approach has made
progress or not is another question. We have certainly learned a lot about
language from it, but whether we have learned about the language faculty is
JS:
say applied linguistics
acquisition and use, that includes both
is
first
another question.
There is a related issue: second language acquisition researchers are

always concerned that the field doesn't have a theory, and whenever someone
proposes a theory, someone says it doesn't account for this and it doesn't account
But then
for that it's not global enough.
concede
IAL:
is
So
going on
a theory in linguistics,
its
value to you
is
it's
if
we
look
at
what
think
many would
certainly not global.
how much
linguistics
can
tell
you about what's
in the brain?
JS: You mean Universal Grammar? Yes, that's its goal, isn't it? It doesn't
have to be psychologically real, but if there are some commonalities among
natural languages, and we can define the constraints on natural language, then we
have, in some indirect way at least, some knowledge about what the brain might
need to be like in order to learn a language.
IAL: But do you see UG as nevertheless being useful as an adequate description

of language X, do you see UG as having some applicability to some other area
of applied linguistics, even
if it
can't inform us directly about cognition?
JS: Well it seems that it is not very informative for the kind of interlanguage
analyses that we do. Rarely is anyone in generative linguistics doing anything
on interlanguage, but interlanguage is performance, so you could argue that it

isn't a concern of linguistics. To do interlanguage analysis you need to know
about things like modality and ergativity and aspect-at this point, current
generative theory doesn't seem to have much to say about those things.
IAL:
Many
formal or programmatic language

How do you see your own
work in relation to that perspective? Is there a useful linkage between language
education and other contributory areas, or do you have a different angle on this?
in applied linguistics see
teaching as an important
if
not primary concern.
Applied linguistics has developed out of a concern for how to teach

I don't say
I think that has been a terribly constraining concern.
that it should abandon language teaching. But for applied linguistics to develop,
think language acquisition and language use should be more generally
I
conceived. Language education would be just one aspect of applied linguistics.
JS:
languages, and
IAL: One
last question:
Do you
have any words of encouragement, or words of
despair, about applied linguistics as a field?
JS: No words of despair, but I think we have to be sober about it. What we are
constantly talking about at meetings and conferences is how we can influence
linguistic theory.
we
can
Basically
say to linguists?
it's
to pay attention to us. What

we have something important to
hear it. If we really have something
begging linguists
think the
say to linguists, within a year or so
first
time
they'll
and they'll hear it.

keep running after linguists to get them to come to
our colloquia where they can listen to what we have to say in case we might say
something worthwhile.
to say that's crucial to theory,
So
don't think
we have
to
it
will get into the literature

,
On the other hand, in applied linguistics, we'll know that we've

accomplished something when we begin to influence another field or other fields.
Right now we influence education: what's relevant in applied linguistics to
language teaching gets to the language teaching field. But we've had no major
influence beyond language education, and if we're to get a clear demonstration of
our vitality it will be when we generate some insights that are useful to
psychologists, sociologists, neuroscientists, artificial intelligence experts, and
even
linguists.
CONCLUSION
The views of our four contributors
by
and
one
are obviously inspired
their individual areas of expertise within language education
language acquisition. Nevertheless, all four have articulated, in

way or another, the connections between these two core areas of
applied linguistics. Moreover, they communicate in their own
idioms not only that sound work in applied linguistics must in some
fashion connect research and theory to experience and practice, but
that language education and language acquisition must be open to
influences beyond applied linguistics which can ultimately help these
core areas influence other domains within our field and help applied
linguistics contribute to other disciplines.
NOTES
1
As Feyerabend (1987), the philosopher of science, has said: "The
knowledge we need to understand and to advance the sciences does not come from
theories, it comes from participation" (p. 284). The "theory of practice" (Bourdieu,
1990)
am
2
advocating
is
designed
to illuminate this participation.
The tension between theory and
practice has of course been with us for

For example, Lorenz (1971) long ago spoke not only of the two reasons
for doing science wanting to know and wanting to to help but also of the potential
conflict between them. Another interesting case is that of Carl Jung who, as Stern
(1976) recounts, "gradually became distrustful of all psychological theorizing about
therapy" and came to believe that "good therapy
has to be tailor-made" (p. 64). A
theory of practice would hope to temper the abstractions and generalizations which
characterize traditional theories and not lose sight of the unique and unexpected.
3
Chomsky (1988) has made an interesting comment which is relevant to
this issue. When he was asked what his method of investigation was, he replied:
some
time.
As for my own methods of investigation, I do not really have any.

The only method of investigation is to look hard at a serious
problem and try to get some ideas as to what might be the
92
Special Feature Roundtable
it, meanwhile keeping an open mind about all sorts

of other possibilities. Well, that is not a method. It is just being
reasonable, and so far as I know, that is the only way to deal with
any problem, whether it is a problem in your work as a quantum
explanation for
physicist or whatever,
4
190)
(p.
assume a research-methodological hierarchy roughly as follows:

APPLIED LINGUISTICS > EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTICS > THEORY OF PRACTICE >
CLASSROOM RESEARCH > ACTION RESEARCH (where ">" signifies "includes").
There is nothing fixed about this particular hierarchy. Rather, the different
components should be seen as building blocks which can be assembled in different
ways on different occasions, or as discourse worlds with multiple embedding options.
I
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descriptive
Contributors
Brian K. Lynch
is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of

Applied Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles,
where he also serves as Academic Director of the ESL Service Courses. His
primary research interests are program evaluation, language testing, and English
TESL &
for Specific Purposes.
John Povey was educated
in
South Africa before coming to Michigan State
University to complete a doctorate in African literature. Since his appointment

at
UCLA
in
1964, he has taught courses both in literature and
ESL programs and
its
relationship to
language policy and planning. His research has been

primarily focused on Africa, where he has worked on projects in Somalia, Togo,
Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe.
This summer, he will be a curriculum
consultant for the University of Namibia. In addition, for more than twenty
years he has edited African Arts, an international journal.
John Schumann
Applied Linguistics
in
is
Professor and Chair of the Department of
TESL &
UCLA.
His research interests include the investigation of

variable success in second language acquisition from the social psychological,
psychological, neurobiological, and linguistic perspectives. He has developed
at
the Acculturation/Pidginization
Leo van
Model
for second language acquisition.
Lier, a native of the Netherlands, received his Ph.D. in Linguistics
from Lancaster University, UK. Now an Associate Professor of Educational

Linguistics at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, his current work
focuses on an integrative approach to the role of language in education.
For IAL
is a PhD student in the Department of TESL & Applied
UCLA. He is currently investigating second language lexical
David Leech
Linguistics at
acquisition and use from the perspectives of cognition, lexical semantics, and
textlinguistics.
Professional Books from Oxford University Press
Promoting Critical Inquiry and

Informed Practice
Vocabulary
Michael McCarthy
explains how appropriate linguistic models of the lexicon, and
knowledge of the way in which vocabulary is stored, can transform a
mass of words into an organized resource.
Video
Richard Cooper, Mike La very, and Mario Rinvolucri
an immediately usable resource designed
to reinforce and
enhance the language learning process through a wide range of
communicative activities.
Corpus, Concordance, Collocation

J.
Sinclair
outlines key developments in computational linguistics and

discusses and provides examples of corpus creation.
Patterns of Lexis in Text

M. P. Hoey
examines patterns of lexis across sentence boundaries and

between texts, and relates these insights to a comprehensive theory
of language in which lexis and text are shown to be important
levels of language organization.
Subscription information for

available
from the
ELT Journal and
Applied Linguistics
is
New York address below.
Oxford University Press

ESL Department
200 Madison Avenue,
New York, NY 10016, (212) 684-1500, (800) 542-2442

CA 90212, (213) 274-1346
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TX 77063,
(713) 781-1343
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Cambridge
7>ESL
University
Press
CAMBRIDGE APPLIED LINGUISTICS

SERIES EDITORS:
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*NEW
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Research Insights for the Classroom
Editor:
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LANGUAGE TRANSFER
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REVIEWS
New Zealand Ways
edited by Allan
Multilingual Matters,
of Speaking English
Bell and Janet Holmes.

1990. 305 pp.
Clevedon,
UK:
Reviewed by
Rachel Locker
Coming
with
my
to
America has resulted
linguistic identity,
my New
in
an interesting encounter
Zealand accent regularly
two distinct reactions: either "Please say

love the way you talk!" (which causes me some
amusement but mainly disbelief), or "Your English is very goodwhat's your native language?" It is difficult to review a book like
New Zealand Ways of Speaking English without relating such
experiences, because as a nation New Zealanders at home and
abroad have long suffered from a lurking sense of inferiority about
the way they speak English, especially compared with those in the
colonial "homeland," i.e., England. That dialectal differences
provoking
something,
at least
I
create attitudes about what is better and worse is no news to

scholars of language use, but this collection of studies on New
Zealand English (NZE) not only reveals some interesting
peculiarities of that particular dialect and its speakers from "downunder"; it also makes accessible the significant contributions of
New
Zealand linguists to broader theoretical concerns in

and applied linguistics. Bell and Holmes' recent
collection includes studies on phonological aspects of linguistic
variation and change, attitudes to NZE and other varieties of
English, pragmatic issues (such as language, gender, and
politeness), and, to add some definite New Zealand flavor, a study
of how oral formulae are learned and used by race-callers (horse
racing being one of New Zealand's national passions). As a first
serious book of its kind, New Zealand Ways of Speaking English
sociolinguistics
is
impressive in meeting the editors' dual challenge of providing a
ISSN 1050-4273
Regents of the Univeristy of California
Vol. 2 No.
1991
97-121
98
Reviews
platform for high quality local information as well as addressing a

range of issues pertinent to colleagues internationally.
My introductory remarks about New Zealanders' selfdeprecating view of their own speech are borne out by glancing at
the provocative titles of studies in the first section of the book
"
("Attitudes to NZE"), e.g., "The Objectionable Colonial Dialect
and "God Help Us If We All Sound Like This." Studies on
Abell as well as Vaughan
attitudes by Bayard, Gordon
&
&
New
Zealanders' rugged independence

in other aspects of national identity, they continue to regard British
Received Pronunciation (R.P.) and North American accents as
Huygens
reveal that despite
authoritative than New Zealand and

Australian accents (which, according to this collection, they have
more prestigious and
some
difficulty telling apart).
However, when
it
comes
to
measures of solidarity, desirable social traits such as friendliness, a

sense of humor, and sincerity are far more strongly associated by
those surveyed with the New Zealand accent than with any other
varieties of English.
Gordon
&
Abells' historical study of attitudes traces the

Zealanders' "poor relation" view of their dialect back
to a colonial relationship with mother England. The quotations
they have collected over the years from letters to editors in the New
Zealand press reveal popular condemnation of NZE in terms such
as "degraded," "hideous," "corrupt," "lazy and slovenly," and "evil
sounding." From the turn of the century, they report, teachers and
parents have been publicly despairing that New Zealand children
New
roots of
"murder" and "mangle" the English language, mainly in response

to the distinctive closing diphthongs (as in /prajz/ for "praise", for
example), centralized /i/ (as in /milk/ for "milk"), and a very closed
/e/ (as in /yies/ for "yes") which, according to these New Zealand
linguists, are the very features which distinguish the NZE dialect.
Other studies in this book, however, do indicate that the historical
grip of British attitudes and speech models has been weakening
somewhat these days, as evidenced by the relatively high prestige
ascribed to cultivated NZE by high school and university students.
It may be that this shift towards a positive appreciation of NZE
reflects changes in New Zealanders' perception of their cultural
identity.
While the
editors
comment
that the book's three studies of
attitudes to speech varieties represent increasing methodological

sophistication, they also note that to date much sociolinguistic
research in
Zealand suffers from the shortcomings of early
New
Vol. 2
No.
1991
99
Labovian methodology. Traces of this can be found in the book,

such as in the Vaughan & Huygens study of sociolinguistic
stereotyping in New Zealand, which employed a match-guise
technique in which subjects rated and categorized recorded accent
samples. This methodology might be criticized on the grounds
that, in real life, responses to speakers and their accents take
account of a complex set of contextual variables in the situation, as
well as previous socializing experiences. Moreover, studies of this
nature also raise the issue that research findings may be more than
incidentally influenced by technological choices: it is interesting to
note that none of the studies in this collection report the use of
videotape as a medium for presenting or analyzing language data,
although this tool exponentially expands the amount of information
available to researchers interested in situated language use.
The section entitled "Change and Variation in
NZE"
investigates forms of linguistic variation across the New Zealand

speech community, which turn out to be less a function of region
than status. Findings of the studies in this section suggest a
volatile situation with respect to accent stratification in
New
Zealand society, pointing more to a continuum of accents than to

clear social-class divisions, as found in the more rigidly stratified
British society. A recurring debate is evident throughout this
as to how many distinct varieties of NZE really exist.
authors accept a three-level classification of accents
following an Australian model, while others dispute the
applicability of the Australian model to New Zealand's relatively
homgeneous speech community. One interesting question raised
but not resolved in this volume is the long-standing debate about
whether there exists a Maori-English dialect in New Zealand.
When asked to identify speakers' ethnic origins, subjects in more
than one study in this volume were able to correctly identify Maori
speakers only some of the time, with a common error of classifying
the speakers of "broad" NZE samples, (usually associated wth
lower socio-economic status speakers) as Maori speakers. It is
interesting to contrast these inconclusive experimental results with
volume
Some
two prominent radio and television

Zealand, one Maori and the other Samoan,
who have been targets of sustained public criticism for their
"inappropriate" accents. Clearly there is some accurate, albeit also
negative, identification of ethnic speech styles going on which
the recent public reaction to
broadcasters in
leaves
New
room for further research on
this question.
100
Reviews
The mix of linguistic resources
available in the
as social and cultural forces shaping language use in
mass media
New Zealand
two studies in this collection, but from different

Bayard investigates the effect of large doses of
American and British media speech as a factor in phonological shift
is
examined
in
perspectives.
in
NZE. According
to
Bayard, popular music
is
apparently both an
indicator and a catalyst of phonological change, for the study finds
on New Zealand airwaves is most often rendered in a

simulation of American pronunciation (as evident in vowels and
rhotic /r/), while the Cockney glottalized /t/ seems to be finding its
way into the NZE dialect through the influence of "punk"-inspired
music as well as from numerous British television programs aired
in New Zealand.
Also concerned with media language, having extensively
researched this topic in New Zealand, Bell takes the perspective
that language is embedded in social situations, and thus his study
offers a thorough analysis of audience and referee design in the
speech of New Zealand news readers and television commercials.
His work, which addresses the classic sociolinguistic question of
why speakers choose particular language styles in particular
situations, concludes that intra-individual variation in newsreaders'
styles across a spectrum of radio stations strongly indicates a
Television
response to perceived audience characteristics.
commercials, on the other hand, initiate styles based on absent
reference groups associated with the desired target group for the
commercial. As in the studies on language attitudes in this volume,
Bell found New Zealanders to be more susceptible to advertising
persuasion when it comes in the form of non-NZE speech,
particularly the upper-class British accent. At the time of his study,
Bell also observed that the absence of Maori language in media
advertising (and the presence of some European languages)
reflected the Maori language's low consumer status in New
Zealand society, despite its legal status as an official language of
New Zealand. Bell's study of recipient design in the spoken media
represents an important step beyond methodology that maps
linguistic and social variables onto each other, for it probes the
more complicated nature of the relationship between linguistic and
contextual indices in language use situations.
Despite this volume being titled New Zealand Ways of
Speaking English, several of the studies in this collection go
beyond this regional focus and use local data to build on previous
understandings of interactional sequences and discourse strategies
that singing
Issues in Applied Linguistics Vol. 2 No. 1
1991
in the literature, particularly with respect to politeness theories
101
and
aspects of gender and language. On the gender question, Holmes

takes issue with Robin Lakoffs earlier work (e.g., 1975) on
American women's language, which characterized women's use of
tag questions and other characteristically female politeness forms as
indexing a deferential stance. Holmes instead takes the perspective
that the linguistic expression of positive affect (or politeness) is an
index of women's concern with creating solidarity and cooperation
The studies of both Holmes and Austin also

examine politeness from the addressee's point of view, thus
bringing to their analyses the interpretive dimension of
communication. This is an important departure from the previous
focus on intentionality which has characterized research based in
in their interaction.
As Austin's title, "Politeness Revisited-The

Side," hints, this interesting study deconstructs how
asymmetries of power are expressed and maintained through
politeness exchanges between men and women. Austin constructs
a model of "face attack," and bases her analysis on the assumption
that the major variable in deciding whether or not to save face is
Levinson's
power. Such a perspective conflicts with Brown
operates
politeness
(1987) consistently face-saving model of how
is the
Holmes
in society. Critical to the studies of Austin and
dimension of context in making theoretical interpretations of
discourse. From this third section of the book a call emerges for a
speech act theory.
Dark
&
theory which accounts for impoliteness as an everyday interactive

strategy and which takes into account the interpretive work that
enables meaning and social relationships to be constructed from
such exchanges. These studies of language, gender, and politeness
thus raise important analytical issues and challenges to perhaps
reconsider the adequacy of major pragmatic models, such as
Brown
Levinson's (1987) politeness model and Sperber
Wilson's (1986) theory of relevance.
New Zealand Ways of Speaking English has much of
interest to offer to applied linguists, ethnographers of
communication, and sociolinguists by covering a wide range of
topics and theoretical approaches. Some of the studies make for
fascinating reading to the eclectic applied linguist (e.g., Kuiper
Austin's analysis of race-calling). And for scholars interested in
language change, variation, and dialects of English, this book is
certainly an overdue and useful addition to that body of research.
But the final section, addressing issues in pragmatics, such as
language, politeness and gender, is where I believe this book
&
&
&
102
Reviews
makes
most worthy contribution, by suggesting some

and gender
New Zealand Ways of Speaking English, true to the
its
significant re-framing of established politeness

theories.
editors' introductory promise, gathers together representative
current research from
and
New
Zealand, across a wide spectrum of

linguistic interests, from phonological and syntactic analysis to
pragmatic concerns about language in society. With this ambitious
agenda, Bell
Holmes succeed in presenting a very readable and
relevant book to the academic community in both hemispheres.
&
REFERENCES
Brown,
P.
&
Levinson, S.
Politeness:
(1987).
Some
universals in language usage.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, R. (1975).
Language and woman's place.
&
Wilson, D. (1986).
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Sperber, D.
Rachel Locker, a native of
New
York: Harper & Row.

Communication and cognition.
New
Relevance:
Zealand,
is
currently a doctoral student in
UCLA,
from where she also holds an M.A. in TESL. As

a professional sign language interpreter, she has practiced in New Zealand as well
Her research interests include second language
as in the United States.
acquisition of signed languages by hearing people, acquisition of English by deaf
people, New Zealand sign language (NZSL) research, and analysis of the
interpreting process. She is currently working for a federally funded project to
develop curriculum for in-service sign language interpreter training.
applied linguistics at
Individual Differences in Second-Language Learning by

Peter Skehan. London: Edward Arnold, 1989. 168 pp.
Reviewed by
Roger
Griffiths
Nagoya
University of Commerce
and Business Administration
While not denying the value of attempting to identify

universal processes of second-language acquisition, it is likely that
teachers are at least as aware of individual differences (IDs) between
1991
103
language learners as they are of similarities. It is consequently

surprising that the study of IDs in a second-language context has not
received more than a fraction of the attention afforded to it in
mainstream psychology (where numerous specialist journals reflect
both an established and thriving research tradition). In addressing
this issue, therefore, Individual Differences in Second-Language
Learning (IDSLL), by Peter Skehan, is not only of substantial
practical relevance, but also marks a timely assertion of the
importance of this general area of research.

IDSLL begins with an account of IDs within "contemporary"
models. For example, Skehan notes that in the "Monitor Model"
(e.g., Krashen, 1982), which assumes comparability of processing
between individuals, differences become trivial. (It is, as an aside,
remarkable that here, and elsewhere, Krashen's model is still taken
seriously; after all, Gregg's (1984) incisive and convincing criticism
has not been challenged by anyone, least of all Krashen.)
Although other "models" described in IDSLL (e.g., the
"Good Language Learner" model and the "Carroll model of school
learning") are somewhat more generous in their treatment of
individual learners than is Krashen's, Skehan nonetheless observes
that no fully developed model of IDs within an L2 context is
currently available to guide research. He argues, however, (and this
is the central theme of the book) that important findings on the role
of IDs in language learning do exist and merit greater prominence.
While the effects of a large number of variables (e.g.,
motivation, learner strategies, cognitive abilities) are reviewed in
IDSLL, language aptitude is singled out for particular attention.
Skehan concludes an extensive history of aptitude test development
by noting the current lack of impact (whether practical or theoretical)
of such tests in the second-language field. Since Skehan sees
aptitude tests as effective sources for the prediction of learning
achievement, he takes the view that such neglect is unjustified and
undesirable and asserts that "aptitude is at least as important, and
usually more important, than any other variable investigated" (p.
38). This view will not be one that is shared by all researchers, but
the evidence in support of it is impressively documented.
Less convinced by L2 findings on motivation, Skehan
maintains that the direction of causality is still unclear: does success
result in motivation or vice versa-or both? That the question can
still be seriously asked says something about how far Skehan
considers research to have progressed in this area. Skehan is
equally unconvinced of the potential impact of research on
104
Reviews
consciously controllable learner strategies in which conflicting

results and lack of agreement as to methodology make firm
conclusions difficult to derive.
Entire chapters having been devoted in IDSLL to reviewing
aptitude, motivation, and language learning strategies, it is
consequently unsatisfactory to find only a single chapter on
"Additional Cognitive and Affective Influences" (i.e., extraversionintroversion, risk-taking, intelligence, field dependence "and other
cognitive abilities," and anxiety). However, in assigning this minor
role to such variables, Skehan is merely following the example set in
other major L2 reviews (e.g., Ellis, 1985). In addition, it must be
acknowledged that he at least comments on the majority of L2
studies in these areas and subsequently arrives at the generally
accepted conclusion that these variables are of little significance in
the language learning equation.
It is, however, possible to adopt an entirely different
perspective, at least in regard to the personality variables. It can, for
instance, be maintained that the virtual writing off of personality
the L2 research agenda results from heeding non-significant
findings related to hypotheses which never merited testing in the
first place. The much investigated proposal that extraverts should be
more proficient language learners than introverts, for example, is not
only extremely naive (in the sense that it directs attention to
extraversion characteristics which might facilitate language learning
but fails to take account of positive, and equally plausible,
introversion behaviors), it also cannot be derived from extant theory
or the very extensive experimental literature on these variables.
Regrettably, however, the totally predictable failure to support the
hypothesis has resulted in there being no papers in major L2
IDSLL does,
journals on personality for almost a decade.
however, come close to identifying naivety of hypothesis derivation
as the fundamental source of problems for L2 research in this area,
but a more critical approach to the literature would have made such a
conclusion inevitable.
In general, what is becoming increasingly clear (and is
merely exemplified by the weaker sections of IDSLL) is that the
from
examine individual studies and their assumptions

an extremely serious problem in second-language literature
reviews. Such reviews inevitably only satisfy until specialists
encounter their own areas. This might, of course, be expected of
wide-ranging reviews, and in many disciplines would not matter.
However, in applied linguistics, such books are not merely
failure to critically
is
Vol. 2
No.
1991
105
textbooks; they are also (unfortunately) accorded authoritative stateof-the-art status.
This is demonstrated by the fact that dissertations are often

framed through consulting such reviews, and it is normally only
after an area is identified that students read the actual studies.
assumption
is
The
have read the

and that what is
that the reviewer of the literature will
original work (or at least a reliable source on it),

reported impartially but critically describes the findings. By that, I
mean no more than that if findings are reported it should be possible
to assume they merit reporting (and are not artifacts of methodology
flaws, unprincipled data-dredging, and the like).
Books such as IDSLL do not guarantee this. Nor can they.
Worthwhile review is not only extremely time consuming, but no
single scholar can have expertise in more than a fraction of the areas
of knowledge forming a discipline (even one as young as applied
linguistics).
This point can be illustrated with a single example. Skehan,

having cited an investigation showing no positive correlation
between extraversion and language achievement, then weighs that
finding against that of another study:
On
the
other hand, Rossier (1976)
found a positive
relationship between extroversion and oral fluency ... but this

relationship did not hold
(p.
102)
(No
up for other proficiency
tests,
further details are given.)
In this statement there is no indication that Rossier's finding

might be embedded in a terminally weak study which does not merit
such citation; such a conclusion is, however, the inevitable
consequence of critical review. Clearly, this point needs to be
convincingly demonstrated if it is to sound other than an
uncharitable alternative opinion. Therefore, unusual as it may be to
place a review within a review, the seriousness of the issue
more detailed look at the Rossier study.

from an initial random sample of 96 twelfth grade
students in two schools, 49 dropped out before the study even
started and 3 more were simply added to make the n size 50. As
extravert students are more likely to volunteer to participate in
research than introverts (Cowles & David, 1987), and as Rossier
lost more than half of his initial sample before he started, the
resulting sample was not only greatly smaller than originally
intended, it also can no longer be described as random. Secondly,
the assessment of oral fluency (and the three other criteria:
necessitates taking a
Firstly,
106
Reviews
pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary) was merely estimated by

3 "experienced" teachers from tape recordings (which were used
because "It proved to be impossible to bring the judges and the
students together for the interview purpose" [Rossier, 1976, p.
68]). The difficulties of defining "fluency" and divorcing it from
factors such as pronunciation were tackled in the following way:
"The investigator briefed the judges to ensure uniformity of criteria
for the judging of each of the components" (p. 69).
Thirdly, the Eysenck Personality Inventory scale which was
used had not at that time been factorially validated in Spanish, much
less in the 8 countries from which subjects were drawn (Eysenck
not only states that it is "imperative that all items be tested for
appropriateness before inclusion in any foreign scoring key," she
also describes the dangers of "spurious results" if this is not done
[Eysenck, 1983, p. 381])
What of the results? Preliminary correlations showed there
was "no significant correlation between the total oral language
production of ex-ESL students in their final semester in high school
and their ratings on the Extraversion-Introversion Scale of the
Eysenck Personality Inventory" (Rossier, 1975, p. 74).
Furthermore, "There is no significant correlation between the scores
of each of the four components of oral language production of exESL students in their final semester in high school and their rating
on the E-I scale of the EPI" (p. 74).
Subsequently, after the "major research hypothesis" had
"failed to show significant correlation between extraversionintroversion and oral language production," Rossier resorted to
partial correlations controlling for single variables. Even then,
"none of the correlations were high enough to reach significance"
It was only after extensive data dredging of partial
(p. 81).
correlations with control of multiple variables that Rossier arrived at
his much quoted finding of a relationship between extraversion and
"fluency."
The analysis is a lengthy one, but it is necessary if we are to
be able to say something about the credibility of IDSLL (at least with
respect to the reporting of this particular study and, if you will, more
generally). Unfortunately, as the example illustrates, inadvertent
deception is likely to be a prominent feature of reviews which fail to
provide information of this sort. Clearly, the individual reader is
done no service when a review does not provide the essential detail
with which it is possible to distinguish competent from incompetent
research. Likewise, the discipline is done a severe disservice by the
1991
107
who
gives equal weight to relatively sound experimentation

is massively flawed. That the practice is endemic in
second-language reviews is no reason for our continuing to accept
reviewer
and
that
which
it.
None of this
good book. It is
is to
say that
IDSLL
is
not in
many ways
and demonstrates a
considerable depth and breadth of knowledge. It is also, in a
The chapter on
number of areas, extremely impressive.
clear, often incisive,
methodological considerations contains excellent introductions to

such matters as questionnaire construction, factor analysis, and
regression analysis; the chapter on language aptitude is also
extremely detailed and convincing; the chapter calling for more
studies of interactions is most welcome, and even in the areas
criticized above, this is still probably the best available introduction
to the field.
However,
in attempting too
much, much
is lost.
REFERENCES
Cowles, M.
&
David, C. (1987).
The
subject matter of psychology: Volunteers.
British Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 97-102.

Understanding second language acquisition.
Ellis, R. (1985).
Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Eysenck, S.B.G. (1983). One approach to cross-cultural studies of personality.

Australian Journal of Psychology, 35, 381-391.
Gregg, K.R. (1984). Krashen's monitor and Occam's razor. Applied Linguistics, 5,
79-100.
Krashen, S.D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition.
Oxford: Pergamon.
Rossier, R.E. (1975/6). Extroversion-introversion as a significant variable in the
Unpublished Ph.D.
learning of oral English as a second language.
(Cited in
dissertation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
IDSLL as 1976; dated June 24, 1975.)
Roger Griffiths has a Ph.D. in applied linguistics and is Associate Professor

of English at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Administration,
Japan. He is also a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British
Psychological Society.
108
Reviews
The Video Connection: Integrating Video
into
Language
Teaching by Rick Altman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,

1989. 184 pp.
Reviewed by
Maria Egbert
Most foreign language
Rick Altman in
The Video Connection, are not yet aware of the resources and
exciting advantages of videotaped teaching materials. Currently,
although interest is growing, curriculum developers, materials
developers, and teachers have been slow to supplement other
materials with video. There is a need for more information about
teachers, according to
what materials are available, how to integrate them into the

curriculum, and what to do with them in the classroom. The Video
Connection provides this information within the overall goal of
Altman's video pedagogy, which is to make video serve a wide
range of educational purposes. In Altman's view, video is one
medium among others which can be integrated into the curriculum
and syllabus.
In Part I, "General Principles," Altman discusses in three
chapters the implications of language acquisition theory and basic
methodological principles for the use of video in the classroom.
Although this part of The Video Connection has some weaknesses,
which will be discussed below, overall, the book provides a wealth
of practical suggestions based on the author's own experience and
that of other pedagogues. These range from "Teaching with Video"
(Part II), which deals with implementing video for teaching different
skills at different proficiency levels, both inside and outside the
class, to other "Practical Considerations" (Part III), which
introduces teachers to legal information pertaining to video and
which helps them understand the hardware and technology of the
VCR as well as other sources of video materials.
Altman claims to have developed a new "pedagogy" or
"methodology" based on video, yet the core of this teacher's
reference book would more appropriately be described as a set of
techniques embedded in a discussion of some theoretical and
methodological issues. Altman's "video pedagogy" is in alignment
with what Larsen-Freeman (1986, p. 109) refers to as "the
comprehension approach," a term which Larsen-Freeman applies to
1991
109
all approaches that concentrate on comprehension as the essence of

language learning in its initial stages. So it is not surprising that
Altman advocates Asher's technique of Total Physical Response
(TPR) (Asher, 1977) and subscribes to Krashen's Monitor Theory
(Krashen, 1985; Krashen & Terrell, 1983). Altman's support of
TPR, however, is contradictory to his postulation that language
should be learned in context. TPR is, after all, merely a revival of
traditional drill exercises in which language is devoid of its natural
context. It is doubtful whether there is a place in the real world
outside the TPR classroom, except perhaps the military, in which
native speakers command each other to "sit down," "stand up," and
"drop the elephant" repetitively and without any politeness markers.
Moreover, Altman's description of Monitor Theory is
disappointingly simplistic from a second language acquisition
researcher's point of view because it deals with only one single
hypothesis from a set of hypotheses which, combined, constitute
Krashen's Monitor Theory. And, whereas the Monitor Theory may
be widely accepted among teachers, it has not found wide
acceptance among researchers in second language acquisition (e.g.,
Takala, 1982; Gregg, 1984). The Monitor Theory thus provides a
rather weak theoretical basis for a teaching methodology.
Notwithstanding these critical remarks, however, I find
Altman's clear and comprehensible introduction to schema theory an
invaluable contribution. His discussion of schema theory is all the
more laudable because he follows through with appropriate
suggestions for classroom teaching. Schema theory claims that the
process of comprehension includes an interaction between the text at
hand and the subject's own prior accumulation and organization of
knowledge (e.g., Carrell, 1983). It is important to activate prior
knowledge in order to ensure that the learner invokes an appropriate
context for the ensuing topic of discussion. Altman describes a
variety of previewing activities designed to achieve this goal. Before
showing a videotaped weather forecast in a lower-level language
course, for example, Altman suggests preparing learners for the
difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit scales, unfamiliar
weather expressions or unfamiliar names of cities, bodies of water,
and geographic regions. This preparation, he recommends, can be
done by discussing a newspaper weather page to bridge the gap
between the learners' knowledge and the knowledge needed to
understand the weather forecast on video.
Integrating video materials into the curriculum for Altman
means concerted, program-wide decisions regarding the amount,
110
Reviews
type, and location of video programs to be used. Curriculum

designers are advised to integrate video materials into their larger
educational planning as a way of attaining broader educational
objectives. Rather than having, say, one video day a week, Altman
maintains that video can support any grammatical or cultural topic as
well as contextualize grammar and vocabulary by embedding
language in a relatively natural context. For this reason, authentic
videos are preferred by Altman. The key to finding time for video,
for Altman, lies in using short video segments which supplement
other materials. He also stresses that video materials must be
chosen not primarily for their inherent artistic value but for their
ability to fulfill a particular function in a particular course. Finally,
Altman points out that the role of the teacher is to foster lively
interaction with the video program because even the best book on
methodology and the best teaching materials will not work if a
teacher is not enthusiastic about the materials.
The strength of Altman's book lies in its wealth of concrete
suggestions for teachers.
A wide variety of exercises and
recommended class procedures address the need voiced by many
teachers for such guidance. These activities are explained clearly,
and a multitude of examples based on actual videos are laid out.
Even a teacher faced with a grammar-driven curriculum can find a
great number of relevant activities.
A teacher preparing a
grammatical unit on the imperative, for example, is advised to
introduce this topic by means of videotaped advertisements. After
students have been exposed to the usage of this form, class activity
can be devoted to getting them to produce the imperative form by
creating their own advertisements. The wide range of exercises
suggested by Altman includes using video inside and outside of
class (for institutions with a separate video laboratory); individual
viewing, group viewing, and small-group viewing; preparatory
activities, follow-up activities, audio exercises with the video sound
track, and cloze exercises; testing with video; video in lower-level
language classes; special-purpose language courses at the upper
level; video produced by students to interact with an exchange class
in the target language.
Altman also calls for cooperation among language and nonlanguage departments, even beyond the campus, in order to
exchange teaching experiences and coordinate fundraising. Given
this appeal to all teachers to cooperate, I wish that The Video
Connection had included a greater variety of languages in the
examples and list of sources, which come mainly from Spanish,
Vol.2 No.
1991
111
French, German, and occasionally from Italian and Russian.

Although the forms of exercises can easily be adapted for use with
other foreign languages, such as Chinese or Japanese, the book
would attract and serve a broader audience if Altman had included a
greater variety of target languages. Furthermore, although the
subtitle of the book, Integrating Video Into Language Teaching,
implies the teaching of all languages, no materials from the
ESL/EFL domain are included. This is all the more surprising given
that the international organization of Teachers of English to Speakers
of Other Languages (TESOL) has a separate interest group for
teaching with video.
Nevertheless, novices to video will find the glossary of
acronyms and technical terms useful; in addition, a list of
distributors of video programs, a selected bibliography, and an
index provide practical information. An especially informative
feature of The Video Connection is its up-to-date report of the rapid
technological development in the realm of combining video,
videodisc, and computer. Although a request form for a 30-minute
demonstration video (at a cost of only $5) is found at the very end of
the book, to the reviewer's regret, the publisher did not submit this
video for review, so no comment can be made.

Altman succeeds in presenting a helpful pool of advice for
video-illiterate but "video-willing" foreign language teachers as well
as for video-literate teachers seeking support and new ideas. In all,
I highly recommend this practical and carefully compiled book to
teachers, materials developers, and curriculum designers.
REFERENCES
(1977). Learning another language through actions: The complete teacher's

guidebook. Los Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions.
Background knowledge in second language comprehension.
Carrell, P.
(1983).
Language Learning and Communication, 2(1), 25-34.
Gregg, K.R. (1984). Krashen's monitor and Occam's razor. Applied Linguistics, 2,
Asher,
J.
79-100.
Krashen, S. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications.
New
York:
Longman.
Krashen, S. & Terrell, T.D. (1983). The natural approach. Oxford: Pergamon.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1986). Techniques and principles in language teaching.
York: Oxford University Press.
Takala, S. (1982). Review essay. Language Learning, 34 (3), 157-174.
New
112
Reviews
Maria M. Egbert is a Ph.D. student in applied linguistics at UCLA. She has

an M. A. in Foreign Language Education from the University of Georgia, Athens
and an M.A. in German as a Foreign Language from the University of Bielefeld,
Federal Republic of Germany. Her research interest
is
Teaching and Learning Vocabulary by

York: Newbury House, 1990. 275 pp.
conversation analysis.
I.S.P. Nation.
New
Reviewed by
David H. Leech
In the recent past, pedagogical attention to vocabulary

learning as a basic learner need for communicative language learning
has too often been lacking. However, this situation may be reversed
as teaching absorbs the increasing flow of information from research
on the development of L2 lexicon (e.g., Laufer, 1986, forthcoming;

Haastrup, 1987; Palmberg, 1987; Meara, 1984), on lexical-semantic
relations in text (e.g., Li, 1988; White, 1988), and on the possible
pedagogical applications of this research (e.g., Robinson, 1988;
Sinclair & Renouf, 1988). I.S.P. Nation's Teaching and Learning
Vocabulary
is
primarily
composed of
the familiar products of
mainstream vocabulary teaching of past decades. However, it is

mainly limited to recapitulating that experience, despite Nation's
concern with linking instruction and recent scholarship. Viewed in
this light, the book should be considered both a summation and a
sign of a pedagogical tradition awaiting fresh input from the
perspectives of contemporary theoretical and applied research.
Teaching and Learning Vocabulary is both a teacher-training
primer and a field manual. Its first five chapters present an
introduction to (and thus provide a working knowledge of)
vocabulary learning/teaching issues: the means and ends of teaching
vocabulary, a discussion of the acquisition of lexical items, what is
meant by "communicating meaning" in the classroom, and
procedural guides for measuring learners' foreign-language lexicon
and for assessing textbooks' vocabulary frequencies. Sections
devoted to application, with exercises for the instructor-in-training,
appear at the end of each chapter.
Vol.2 No.
1991
113
Chapters Six through Nine are concerned with vocabulary

teaching and the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
This conventional approach to dividing up the skill areas certainly
provides a familiar organization for the teacher who may be
searching for particular guidance on teaching technique. Indeed,
practical skill-specific suggestions are presented which deal with
preliminary assessment of learner needs and the construction of
Nation's consistent use of
appropriate teaching materials.
explanatory figures and sample exercises casts these practical
presentations in the same "hands-on," teacher-in-the-field format as
the rest of the book. One aspect of this section of the book which
requires amendment in later editions, however, is the placement of
exercises for one skill in a chapter on some other skill. For
example, an exercise is suggested in which learners listen to native

speakers and try to match the words and definitions they hear to
pictures (p. 105), yet this exercise is presented in the chapter on
"Vocabulary and Speaking." A similar problem is evident in the
same chapter in which a confusingly worded exercise is suggested:
learners are "given a word and four of its collocations. They write
four sentences for each pair" (p. 101). Perhaps these exercises
simply need to be extended so that a bridge from active reception to
active production is clearly provided. Finally, the chapter on
"Vocabulary and Writing" is too short and undeveloped to appeal to
a composition teacher, but given the lack of research on acquisition
and use of vocabulary knowledge in writing, this is understandable.
Diverging temporarily from a teacher's perspective, Nation

includes a useful chapter (Chapter Ten) on "Learner Strategies,"
which is a consideration of meta-cognitive techniques to help
learners expand and retain vocabulary-guessing word meanings
from context, memorization devices such as the "key" method, and
learning productive morphology-techniques which foster learner
independence, an important but nonetheless under-represented
consideration in Learning and Teaching Vocabulary.
Chapter Eleven cogently discusses a rationale for and
To be
sure, Nation values

one among other possible
strategies, but throughout the book other thoughtful and promising
alternatives are presented. The most significant among these are
exercises which call for vocabulary manipulations according to
semantic structures and associations/collocations. Lexical syllabi
can and should naturally involve the learning of syntax and
communicative language use; this is implied and sometimes
methods of
text simplification.
memorization of vocabulary
lists
as
114
Reviews
demonstrated in Nation's book. On the other hand, most of the

suggested activities still remain isolated from a broader, more
communicative context which the classroom calls for. Perhaps it
would be wise when actually applying the suggestions in Teaching
and Learning Vocabulary to expect that effort will be necessary to
incorporate newly learned vocabulary into a wider and certainly for
the EFL classroom, an ultimately communicative context. In
Chapter Twelve, a departure from the pedagogical objectives of the
rest of the book, Nation briefly recounts the research into
vocabulary and vocabulary learning. In addition to an exhaustive
bibliography, Nation includes eight useful appendices, which range
from word lists and example teaching texts to vocabulary puzzles
and a "vocabulary levels test."
An association of vocabulary teaching with list-like syllabi,
(e.g., sequences of grammar structures and rhetorical functions)
may well account for some of the contemporary disaffection with
teaching vocabulary per se in the classroom. Yet, recent work
which has constructed learner vocabulary syllabi by analysing
computer-generated lists for frequency, salient contextual meanings,
and usage has gone far in demonstrating that the incorporation of a
vocabulary-centered curriculum may not only be wise it may be
indispensibly efficient (Sinclair & Renouf, 1988; Phillips, 1985).
General departures from data-based course content, perhaps most
clearly evident in the task-based approach (e.g., Long, 1989), have
had the unfortunate consequence of retarding the process by which
results from classroom trials of new pedagogical materials based on
research in vocabulary learning inform both pedagogical and basic
research. Basic research on the lexicon has also been retarded by
the predominance of a theoretical linguistics-inspired, syntaxcentered paradigm as well as perhaps by the common notion that
acquisition of lexical- semantic structures is too complex to deal with
in a sufficiently scientific way (Laufer, 1986; Meara, 1984). Yet
given the promising nature of recent research on both LI and L2
lexical acquisition and use (e.g., White, 1988; Meara, 1984) the
emergence of plausible classroom applications of that research is
sure to develop further. However, Nation's summative presentation
of research includes some, but not enough, of the contributions of
relative types of cognitive studies (e.g., Tyler
Nagy, 1990;
Channell, 1988; Pressley et al., 1987; Zimmerman
Schneider,
1987), text-linguistics studies (e.g., Robinson, 1988; Phillips,
&
&
1985), and the work on the Birmingham Corpus and the

project (Sinclair
Renouf, 1988; Sinclair, 1987).
&
COBUILD
1991
115
The mix of traditional pedagogy with new findings from

research in I.S.P. Nation's Teaching and Learning Vocabulary
partially satisfies the need for a practical manual for constructing
vocabulary syllabi at any level, particularly for TEFL/TESL teacher
As a teaching resource, the book can be
training programs.
recommended both to new and experienced English language
instructors as a useful guide for supplementing an existing
curriculum. It would also be helpful to those engaged in building a
needs-based vocabulary program from the ground up. Perhaps it is
not surprising that Nation's book should have appeared only
recently and that it should be what it is: an up-to-date yet unmatured
blend of traditional and experimental vocabulary pedagogy (the
result being a retention of some familiar problems i.e., lack of
communicative practice and contextualization) and a much-needed
summation for the language teacher of what is known and, by
implication, what is not yet known about vocabulary learning and
teaching. Nation's book makes a start in incorporating new and old
wisdom about vocabulary teaching, but it thereby fails to satisfy the
ultimate need: effective vocabulary instruction based on an adequate
knowledge of how vocabulary acquisition actually takes place and
how the lexicon is actually used.
REFERENCES
Channell,
J.
L2 vocabulary
M. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary and language
London: Longman.
Psycholinguistic considerations in the study of
(1988).
acquisition.
In R. Carter
teaching (pp.
83-96).
&
Using thinking aloud and retrospection to uncover learners'

In C. Faerch & G. Kasper (Eds.),
lexical inferencing procedures.
Introspection in second language research (pp. 197-212). Philadelphia:
Haastrup, K.
(1987).
Multilingual Matters.
Laufer, B.
(1986).
research.
Laufer, B.
(forthcoming).
advanced
Li,
X.
Possible changes in attitude towards vocabulary acquisition

(1), 69-75.
IRAL, 24
(1988).
learner.
The development of L2
Modern Language Journal.
lexis in the expression of the
Effects of contextual cues on inferring and remembering meanings.
Applied Linguistics, 9
(4),
402-413.
University of
Long, M.H. (1989). Task, group, and task-group interactions.
Hawai'i Working Papers in ESL, 8 (2), 1-26.
Meara, P. (1984). The study of lexis in interlanguage. In A. Davies.C. Criper, &
A.P.R. Howatt (Eds.), Interlanguage (pp. 225-235). Edinburgh, UK:
Edinburgh University Press.
Palmberg, R. (1987). Patterns of vocabulary development in foreign language
learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 9, 201-219.
116
Reviews
(1985). Aspects of text structure: An investigation of the lexical

organisation of text. New York: Elsevier Science Publishers.
Pressley, M., Levin, J.R., & McDaniel, M.A. (1987). Remembering versus infering
Phillips,
M.
what a word means: Mnemonic and contextual approaches. In M.G.

McKeown & M.E. Curtis (Eds.), The nature of vocabulary acquisition (pp.
107-127). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Robinson, P.J. (1988). A Hallidayan framework for vocabulary teaching:
An
approach to organising the lexical content of an ESL syllabus. IRAL, 26
(3), 229-238.
Sinclair, J.McH.
(Ed.) 1987. Collins COBUILD English language dictionary.
London: Collins.
Sinclair, J.McH. & Renouf, A. (1988). A lexical syllabus for language learning. In
J. Carter & M. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary and language teaching (pp.
140-160). London: Longman.
Tyler, A. & Nagy, W.
(1990). Use of derivational morphology during reading.
Cognition, 36, 17-34.
White, C.J. (1988). The role of associational patterns and semantic networks in
vocabulary development. English Teaching Forum, 26 (4), 9-11.
Zimmermann, R. & Schneider, K.P. (1987). The collective learner tested:
Retrospective evidence for a model of lexical search. In C. Faerch & G.
Kasper (Eds.), Introspection in second language research (pp. 177-196).
Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.
is a PhD student in the Department of TESL & Applied

UCLA. He is currently investigating second language lexical
David Leech
Linguistics at
acquisition and use from the perspectives of cognition, lexical semantics, and
textlinguistics.
Interaction: Language and Science by Terry L. Powell.

Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1990. 290 pp.
Reviewed by
Charlene Polio
Interaction: Language and Science, by Terry L. Powell, is

not a book on the discourse of science, as one might expect from its
title.
It is actually a reading textbook for students of English for
Science and Technology (EST). Two criteria relevant to evaluating
such a textbook are the extent to which the author has responded to
schema theory and attended to material authenticity. While the book
1991
117
does not rate high with regard to these criteria, it nevertheless does
have some value, though, unfortunately, for only a very limited
range of students.
The book is divided into six thematic groupings: biology,

energy, statistics and economics, computers, tools, and new
technology. Each grouping contains several units each of which
revolves around a passage of approximately 500 words. Totalling
thirty in all, these units are organized in an identical way and, as the
author suggests in the preface, need not be taught sequentially.
Each unit begins with a "Before You Read" section that asks the
students to preview a reading passage by examining its title,
subtitles, and figures. In the passage which follows, all technical
terms, those specific to the subject, appear in bold print, while a list
of what Powell calls "subtechnical terms" (i.e., "words that are
common to a wide variety of scientific books") are defined at the end
of the passage. After each reading passage is a section called
"Understanding Vocabulary" which includes exercises on the
technical and subtechnical vocabulary as well as exercises on
relevant word parts.
The next two sections are "Using
Information," consisting of tasks which have the students scan and
organize information from the passage, and "Understanding
Structure," containing explanations of and practice with grammar
that is supposedly common in scientific and technological writing.
The book ends with an answer key and a glossary of all the
subtechnical vocabulary.
The pre-reading exercises

certainly consistent with reading
at the start
schema
theory,
of each unit are

which holds that if
a reader has certain expectations about a text prior to actually

reading, he or she will understand that text more easily than if
background knowledge was not activated in advance (Carrell
Clearly, previewing skills are useful, and
Eisterhold, 1983).
therefore taught in many ESL reading textbooks (e.g., Casanave,
Eisterhold also
1986; Latulippe, 1987). However, as Carrell
note, previewing involves not only looking over a passage but also
teaching a concept or raising an issue relevant to the passage.
Content schemata, in fact, have been shown to be more important to
&
&
comprehension than formal schemata (Carrell, 1987). Yet Powell

has no exercises to orient a reader unfamiliar with a particular topic.
One explanation for this oversight may be an assumption on the
author's part that students already possess the appropriate
background knowledge. Still, some content orientation exercises
would likely benefit many students, especially undergraduates just
775
Reviews
and technology.
themselves, because they are not
acknowledged, appear to have been written specifically for this
textbook. They resemble excerpts from technical textbooks as
opposed to academic journal articles, which further suggests hat the
supposed audience for this book is a student at the early stages of a
starting out in science
The passages
scientific education. Nevertheless, many of the topics are relevant

primarily to an engineering major, as is the case in the unit on the
internal combustion engine and the one on control systems.
However, Powell notes that any non-scientist can easily teach from
the book, in part because
all
the field-specific technical
words
(e.g.,
spark plugs, isotope, hypothalmus, bellows, nebula) are defined in

the clearly and simply written passages.
The subtechnical vocabulary defined at the end of each
passage appears to be a good representation of words used across
scientific and technical fields, although there is no indication what
Powell's source is for determining this class of vocabulary. Some
researchers have claimed that such a subtechnical vocabulary exists
and indeed may cause difficulties for EST students (e.g., Trimble,
1985). The vocabulary tasks that follow are standard multiplechoice and fill-in-the-blank exercises.
The exercises in the "Understanding Information" sections
are more innovative, however. In addition to scanning exercises,
many units have students organize information from the passage
using charts and tables. These information transfer exercises
provide the students with an alternative to outline writing, a type of
exercise which is often cumbersome and which rarely works well
with short passages. Together with these kind of exercises, which
help students extract meaningful information from the texts, there
are also several thought-provoking discussion questions that ask the
students to relate what they have read to real-world knowledge.
Finally, while the grammar sections provide a useful review
of what might be troublesome linguistic structures for intermediate
students, the exercises are rather mechanical and uninspired. The
explanations cover, for example, passives, noun compounds,
infinitives of purpose, connectors showing contrast, and clause
reduction, all of which are used (and not overused) by Powell in the
passages. However, research has not conclusively determined
whether these features are actually more common in scientific
writing than in other types of discourse. Furthermore, whether
grammatical exercises focusing on such points will actually improve
a student's reading ability is an open question.
Vol.2 No.
1991
119
How this book relates to authenticity of reading materials for

EST
worthy of discussion. Clearly, the passages are nonauthentic in that they are not taken from any source nor do they
appear to have been adapted. Powell must believe that some aspects
of authenticity are important, however, for he states that he has tried
to use grammatical structures and the lexicon of science in the
passages. Why then did he not choose passages from actual
scientific texts? While he does not say, it might be that having
decided on a length limit for the passages (for reasons also not
explained), Powell found that collecting a set of self-contained
passages of this length was too difficult.
But despite Powell's orientation to the authenticity of
grammar and lexicon, Phillips
Shettlesworth (1987) have claimed
that syntax and lexis are not necessarily the most important elements
in controlling written discourse. They stress that what the text is
used for as an activity is more important for fostering authenticity.
is
&
And
thus, perhaps the test of a book such as this is whether it has

students use the passages as a scientist, or at least a science
undergraduate, might actually use them. To his credit, Powell does
ask students to apply the information from the passages to new
situations, forcing them to go beyond mere decoding and
comprehension. However, because the passages are so short, it
seems it would be difficult to simulate in the classroom what science
majors or scientists actually do with readings in their field.
Does such a textbook, then, have a place among authentic
materials in an EST class? Brinton et al. (1989), in their discussion
of content-based materials, argue for supplementing authentic
materials with commercial textbooks. However, they warn "that
these materials be selected carefully for their relevance to course
objectives" (p. 92). Given the discussion above, it seems that this
type of non-authentic text, even if not ideal, could be beneficial as a
supplementary textbook for improving vocabulary and reading
fluency.
mind, for what types of learners and

book be used? The preface describes the book as an
intermediate-level text for ESL or EFL students "who are planning
to be specialists in a scientific or technical field" and who "need to
read and understand technical textbooks and source materials." Yet,
with the exception of a few units, the book is not appropriate for a
general university EST class because of its many engineering and
economics passages, although it may be useful for a class
population in a technical or engineering school with a more restricted
With
course can
this caution in
this
720
Reviews
range of majors. Certain sections of the book would be relevant to

the needs and interests of ESL learners in particular specialized
academic disciplines, for example, the biology section to biologists
or the economics section to economists. But how often does a
general ESL/EST teacher have only biology or only economics
students? In a mixed EST class, a biology student would probably
not want to read about an internal combustion engine, nor would an
economics student want to read about biomes and food webs. And
even with a specialized class population, most teachers would not
ask their students to purchase a book from which only a limited
number of units will be exploited. However, Powell also states that
the book can be used for self-study, and therefore could be a
worthwhile addition to a learning lab where students could choose
those sections of the book they were interested in.
A major flaw of this book is its misleading title which does
not suggest that it is a reading textbook but seems, rather, to imply
that the book is about the language of science. Furthermore, most
people think of "science" as biology, chemistry, and physics, not
engineering and economics. And finally, the word "interaction" is
used in the title because, according to Powell, reading is an
interactive process and the student must be actively involved with
the text, the teacher, and other students.
However, with the
exception of the discussion questions, the contrary is true about the
approach to reading taken by the book: Interaction: Language and
Science is a better book for self-study because for most of the
exercises the teacher and other students need not be involved. If the
discussion questions are not used, there is little "interaction" with
the text.
In sum, Interaction:
organized, clear, and contains
Language and Science
is
well
some apparently beneficial exercises.

useful for a mixed university EST class
However, it is probably less

and more relevant to a group of students
at a technical or engineering
school. Given the right population of learners, then, the book is
appropriate for either self-study or as supplemental material in a
reading class, but not as the principal text in an EST class.
REFERENCES
Brinton, D., Snow, M.,
Carrell, P. (1987).
&
Wesche, M. (1989).
Content-based second language
New
York: Newbury House.

Content and formal schemata in
instruction.
21, 461-482.
ESL
reading.
TESOL
Quarterly,
Carrell, P.
&
Vol.2 No.
Casanave, C. (1986). Strategies for readers: Book
1.
1991
121
ESL
reading pedagogy.
Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
J. (1983).
Schema theory and
Quarterly, 17, 553-573.
Eisterhold,
TESOL
Hall.
Latulippe, L.
(1987).
Developing academic reading
skills.
Englewood
Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Phillips,
& Shettlesworth, C. (1987). How to arm your students: A consideration

of two approaches to providing materials for ESP.
In M. Long & J.
Richards (Eds.), Methodology in TESOL (pp. 105-111). New York:
M.
Newbury House.
English for science and technology.
Trimble, L. (1985).
Cambridge University
Cambridge, UK:
Press.
Charlene Polio is a doctoral student in applied linguistics at UCLA. Her

research interests are in second language acquisition and foreign language
teaching.
MULTILINGUAL and
MULTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
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Edwards
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This journal, with
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It
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Papers to be published in Volume 12; 3 onwards:
Attitudes of Swazi Teachers
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English Speaking Countries:
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The Case of
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Owen G. Mo/daunt.
ESL in Developing
Oiadejo..
Pre-School Period: Metalinguistic Development
&
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A lasdair Roberts.
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Is
Towards
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Welsh Language; Jean Lyon and'Nick Ellis.
an Interactive Integration of the European Peoples Possible?
Youth
in
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West Germany; Agostino Portera.
Discourse Patterns and Fieldwork Strategies
Problems for Researchers
in
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Bilingual Communities;
Settings:
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AX. Mikoy, Li Wei and
S.
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Music and Multicultural Education an Anglo-Australian Perspective; F. Muipby.
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American Association
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Applied Linguistics (AAAL)

Annual Meeting
February 28
Seattle,
March
2,
1992
Washington
Plenary Speakers
Elinor
Ochs
Michael H. Long
Braj B. Kachru
Lily Wong-Fillmore
Featured Colloquia:
Language
as
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Current Issues
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CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Abstracts are invited for both individual papers and half-day colloquia on
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127
Call for Papers

The Twelfth
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April 2-5, 1992
Second Language Acquisition:

Interdisciplinary Perspectives
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is
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128
1992-1993 Fulbright Scholar Awards

for
US
Faculty and Professionals
The Fulbright Scholar Program
for 1992-1993 includes some 1,000

grants for research, combined research and lecturing, or university
lecturing. Opportunities range from 2 months to a full academic
year. There are openings in over 100 countries and, in many
regions, multicountry research is possible.
Scholars in all academic ranks are eligible to apply, from junior

faculty to professor emeriti, from virtually all disciplines and
subfields. Applications are also encouraged from professionals
outside academe and from independent scholars.
basic eligibility requirements for a Fulbright award are US
citizenship and PhD or comparable professional qualifications; for
certain awards in TESOL, the
degree in the field may be
The
MA
For mini-lecturing awards, university or college teaching

experience is expected. Language skills are needed for some
countries, but most lecturing assignments are in English. There is
no limit on the number of Fulbright grants a scholar can hold, and
former grantees may reapply.
sufficient.
In addition, the
Indo-US Subcommision on Education and Culture
offering twelve long-term (6-10 months) and nine short-term (2-3

months) awards for 1992-1993 research in India. These grants will
be available in all academic disciplines, except clinical medicine.
is
Scholars and professionals with limited or no prior experience in

India are especially encouraged to apply.
DEADLINES: June
15* for Australasia, South Asia, most of

Latin America, India, and the USSR. August 1 for Africa, Asia,
Europe, the Middle East, Canada, and lecturing awards in the
Caribbean, Mexico, and Venezuela. Other deadlines are in place for
special programs.
Application materials are now available. For further information and
applications, call or write the Council for International Exchange of
Scholars, 3007 Tilden Street, N.W., Suite 5M, Box NEWS,
Washington, DC 20008-3009. Telephone: (202) 686-7877.
*Applications in Applied Linguistics will likely be accepted after the

CIES for more information.
stated deadline. Call
Explore
&
Discover
TESOL '92
Teachers of English to Speakers
of Other Languages, Inc.
26th Annual
& Exposition
March 3-7, 1992
Vancouver, British Columbia,
Convention
Canada
Conference Organizers
Marjorie P Knowles
Mission College
Santa Clara, California
D Wyman
Earl
Brigham Young University

Hawaii Campus
Nicholas J Collins
Capilano College
North Vancouver, B.C.
Registration materials will be mailed in
Autumn
I'/'JI
in nil
TESOl members
information mi registering and

exhibiting, write to
tb(H>
Cameron
TESOL.
Inc.
Suite
Mm
Street.
Alexandria Virginia JJ.il i I'SA

Telephone (''Hi 8.i6-t)"-i
ha.\
-nil H.id
'hi,
Celebrating 2S years ol B <; TEAL.

nguage
Columbia Teachers of English as an Aiklition.il Language
the Association of British
130
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
Journals
Applied Linguistics, 11
1990; 12
Cross Currents, 17
(1),
(1), March, 1990; 11

March, 1991.
(1),
Spring, 1990.
(2),
June, 1990; 11
(4),
December
Discourse Processes, 13
(2), April- June, 1990; 13 (3), July-September, 1990.

Journal, 44 (1), January, 1990; 44 (2), April, 1990; 44 (3), July, 1990; 44 (4),
October, 1990; 45 (1), January, 1991; 45 (2), April, 1991.
English for Specific Purposes, 9 (2), 1990.
Focus on English, 6 (3), February, 1991.
Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 16 (1), January-June, 1990.
ELT
1RAL, 28 (4), November, 1990.

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 10 (Index), 1989; 11
1990; 11 (4), 1990; 11 (5), 1990.
Language International, 1 (6), December, 1989.
Second Language Research, 6 (2), December, 1990.
Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 19 (1), Spring, 1989.
Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education, 1 (4), Fall, 1990.
(3),
TESL Canada Journal,
8(1), November 1990.

Quarterly, 24 (3), Autumn, 1990.
Journal of the College of Foreign Languages, 1991, No. 4.
University, Japan.
TESOL
The
The Modern Language Journal, 75
(1),
Himeji Dokkyo
Spring, 1991.
Books
& Holmes, J. (Eds.). (1990). New Zealand ways of speaking English.

Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Ellis, R. (1987). Second language acquisition in context.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Bell, A.
Prentice-Hall.
&
J. (Eds.). (1989). Linguistic perspectives on second language

Cambridge: UK: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M.A.K., Gibbons, J., & Nicholas, H. (Eds.). (1990). Learning, keeping
and using language (Vols. 1 and 2). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
Hammond, G.R. (Ed.). (1990). Cerebral control of speech and limb movements.
Amsterdam: North Holland.
Harley, B., Allen, P, Cummins, J., & Swain, M. (Eds.). (1990). The development of
second language proficiency. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Gass, S.
Schachter,
acquisition.
Press.
Hyltenstam, K. & Obler, L.K. (Eds.). (1989). Bilingualism across the lifespan:
Aspects of acquisition, maturity, and loss. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Johnson, D.M. & Roen, D.H. (Eds.). (1989). Richness in writing. New York:
Longman.
131
Second language writing: Research insights for the

(1990). The foundations of dual language instruction. New York:
Kroll, B. (Ed.). (1990).
classroom.
Lessow-Hurley,
J.
Longman.
Language transfer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning strategies in second language
acquisition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Odlin, T. (1989).
O'Malley, J.M.
&
Pattanayak, D.P. (Ed.). (1990).

Multilingual Matters.
Multilingualism
in
India.
Clevedon,
UK:
& Sabsay, S. (Eds.). (1985). Social setting, stigma, and communicative

competence: Explorations of the conversational interactions of retarded
adults. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Richards, J. & Nunan, D. (Eds.). (1990). Second language teacher education.
Swaffer, J., Arens, K., & Byrns, H. (1991). Reading for meaning: An integrated
approach to language learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Tannen, D. (1990). You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation. New
York: William Morrow.
Woodward, T. (1991). Models and metaphors in language teacher training: Loop
input and other strategies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Piatt,
M.
132
ERRATA
In
Volume
Number
1,
of Issues
in
Applied Linguistics (June, 1990):
The name of Zeinab A. El-Naggar was inadvertently

Subscribers on page
In
1.
Volume
1,
left
off the
list
of Charter
iii.
Number 2 of Issues
in
Applied Linguistics (December, 1990):
In the Special Feature Roundtable, the following corrections should be noted:
-On page 145, in the second paragraph, the second sentence should read:
"Fourteen responses to our call for contributions were received from Europe, the
Middle East, and North and South America, from students and faculty, men and
women,
applied linguists and interested others."
(line 8)
-On page 152, in the introductory paragraph to Section II, "co-existing"

was inadvertently misspelled, and the word "distinct" (line 12) should have
been deleted.
-On page 154,
Prof.
Laboratory of Psycholinguistics
the Department of Philology.
Slama-Cazacu's affiliation should have been the

at the University of Bucharest, and not, as printed,
-On page 165, the biographical information about Prof. Slama-Cazacu

should also have included that she is the President of the Romanian Association of
Applied Linguistics.
In the article by Juan Carlos Gallegp, "The Intelligibility of Three Nonnative
English-Speaking Teaching Assistants: An Analysis of Student-Reported
Communication Breakdowns," the following corrections should be noted:
2.
-The table titled "Speaking Performance Scale for UCLA Oral Proficiency
Test for Nonnative TAs," which begins on page 236, should have appeared under the
heading "Appendix A."
-The Note at the bottom (page 237) of this Appendix should have read:
"Results claimed in this article using an adapted testing instrument should in no way
be construed as confirming or denying the validity of the original test on which it
was based, or
as possessing
The Editors apologize
any validity of the original
for these oversights.
test."
133
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135
INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Issues in Applied Linguistics (IAL) is a refereed scholarly journal published
by the graduate students of the UCLA Department of TESL & Applied Linguistics. The
Editors encourage submissions of previously unpublished manuscripts from students,
faculty, and independent researchers in the broad areas of language acquisition,
language analysis, language education, language testing, language use, and research
methodology.
IAL
is
looks favorably on interesting small-scale studies as well as large-scale studies,

new departures as well as underrepresented areas of applied
interested in publishing
and encourages submissions from countries other than the U.S.

and from nonnative speakers of English.
linguistics research,
Issues
in
Applied
Linguistics
invites
submissions
the
in
following
categories:
Manuscripts should be no longer than 30 double-spaced

Full length articles:
pages, including tables which must appear in their proper place in the text. The
author's name should appear on a separate page only, along with a 50-word
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title
and a 200-word
abstract.
Submit
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may submit reviews of publications and materials relevant to the field of
readers
applied
The Editors prefer reviews which are embedded in a discussion of an issue

field.
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linguistics.
in the
should be submitted in three copies with

a
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Review
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and should provide supporting evidence for any claims made. Work in progress
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in progress:
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solicits
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136
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Issues in Applied Linguistics

The Tug of War

Performance of ESL Students on a State Minimal

Frames and Coherence

Language Education, Language Acquisition:

John Povey, Brian K. Lynch, John Schumann

Maria Egbert, David Leech,

Assistant to the Review Editor

is published twice a year by the graduate students

Issues in Applied Linguistics

For advertising information, contact the Managing Editor, IAL, UCLA

Partial funding provided

Los Angeles, California 90024

UCLA Graduate Students Association

Copyright 1991, Regents of the University of California

and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)

The Tug of War

Performance of ESL Students on a State

Frames and Coherence

John Povey, Brian K. Lynch, John Schumann

Reviewed by Rachel Locker

The Video Connection: Integrating Video

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary

Reviewed by David H. Leech

Language and Science

Reviewed by Charlene Polio

Information for Contributors

Whenever and wherever

and Applied Linguistics

the pressures of "modernization"--

growing importance of sciencehave become unusually intense, episodes of revivalism and

Walter Dean Burnham

a conservative voice in educational and

Bush presidency has fueled a fiery public colloquy

debate, on "The Changing Culture of the

University," was held by the Partisan Review at Boston University

opportunity to reinforce their deeply-embedded view of the "crisis in

Regents of the University of California

courses," and aggressively argue that

multiculturalism, and critical pedagogy are merely attempts at liberal

applied linguistics, by and large, and, therefore, have not engaged

uncovers rather than suppresses the complex histories,

order to restore and affirm the legacy and unrealized potential of

to be sure, can be unsettling, for

come face to face with the tacit assumptions underlying everything

issue of the second

Linguistics, the lead article, by

how language planning policy can be analyzed by the

The second main

article in this issue,

by James Dean Brown,

a report of research carried out to assess the performance of

about competency testing that have

implications which applied linguists ought to address in the future.

and activities can be seen to contribute to the linguistic and textual

While her research

raises issues for the creation and perception of

Schumann responds to questions from David Leech (who

suggest that work in language education and work in language

acquisition continue to inform one another in a

not the inscriptions of a settled people

As of June 1, 1991, Sally Jacoby, Assistant Editor, will take

speakers of English. In addition, IAL will continue to encourage